RE: Death of the database

Quoting "Mercadante, Thomas F (LABOR)" <Thomas.Mercadante_at_labor.state.ny.us>:

> But the really important thing is to start thinking differently about
> databases. Do we really need a centralized system for "just in time"
> inventory? Car manufacturers have figured this out already.

Well, we've been thinking diferently about databases for decades now. Gartner is only what, 30 years late? That's the problem with the morons in that place who make it a mission in life to build up their profile at the expense of deriding what's done before.

30 years ago no one in his right mind would dare go for direct online updates of databases unless they had a Cecil B. de Mille budget. 20 years ago it was starting to be trivial. 10 years ago no one even gave it a second thought.
20 years ago no one in his right mind would think of keeping all transactions of a database for future reference. Nowadays, DWs are common place. Notice I didn't say trivial. But getting there.

DSS was unheard of 20 years ago. Now it's second nature.

All these events were preceded by pundits like this one predicting the end of the world as we know it, the end of computing as we know it, the start of a brave new world, adapt or perish, yadda yadda. It would be funny if it wasn't so boring and repetitive. Nothing new here.

Guess what: databases underpinned ALL those events. And still do.

I'm quite sure my local Woolworths would laugh at having robots scan its shelves - they've got enough problems with human beans doing that now! - but 10 years in the future it might be commonplace. I doubt it, for engineering related reasons. But it just might happen.

And the scanned data will still go into databases and be processed when and if needed. As it is today. The idea that a total stock scan would be made when needed doesn't even deserve one minute of thought: it's so ludicrous it borders on the irresponsible. But even if it eventuated that the hardware resources to do so would one day become feasible AND cost effective, then all we'd be doing would be changing the location of the data. We wouldn't be changing one bit what we need to do with it, how we need to structure it to understand and make sense and use of it. And that is preciously what a database does implicitly.

Besides storing data, of course: that's the trivial bit beyond which morons like this one have never been able to progress.

The Gartner luminary has made no progress whatsoever in the use (or lack thereof) of databases, all he's done is put forward totally unfounded propositions about robotics and RFID tags and other such drivel and extrapolate from there that "databases wouldn't be needed".

Obviously the pundit has NO CLUE whatsoever how databases are used nowadays and what they really do, he's just repeating the usual rubbish from slashdot or other "credible resources".

As I said: another Gartner lunatic.

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Cheers
Nuno Souto
from sunny Sydney
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