Re: Why not move Apt to a relational database

[Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org>]

On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 12:22:46PM +0200, Joey Schulze wrote:
> Justin Emmanuel wrote:
> > I am brand new to this mailing list, I joined it because I had an idea
> > that I would like to have considered. Moving apt to a relational
> > database, for several reasons.
> 
> Before reading on, have you considered the following:
> 
>  - using an RDB requires a running RDBMS
>  - running an RDBMS requires memory and cpu usage
>  - in case of an upgrade RDBMSs often dump there databases and import
>    them.  What will happen when the upgrade fails during this?  No
>    package database would be really bad

Not so with sqlite (although perhaps the second point might be).

>  - copying parts of the database to another system, or patching it
>    is not as easy as it is with plain files

That, however, most certainly is true. 

-- 
Shaw's Principle:
	Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will
	want to use it.