I have a soft spot for hierarchical databases. My first database-related job was programming in M/Mumps. I know the standard history of databases says that hierarchical databases are a relic of the past, and that, thanks to Codd, relational databases solve many of the problems of hierarchical (and other kinds of) databases. I like relational databases – I was an Oracle DBA, I’ve worked with DB2, Sybase, Postgres, mSQL, others, and now MySQL. I really like InnoDB. However, I am occasionally sad that hierachical databases seem a thing of the past.
Or are they? Yesterday I had a thought that hierarchical databases are much more widely used than relational databases. In fact, maybe every single computer has a hierarchical database that is used by every computer user, whether they have database software installed or not. The file system! Isn’t that a hierarchical database? The idea made me feel better. 
November 18, 2012 at 9:42 am |
And Directory Services (LDAP, X.500) are also hierarchical. And there are more types of databases other then relational and hierarchical: the network and graph databases.
And MUMPS is really a good language… for obfuscation.
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS.aspx
November 18, 2012 at 6:21 pm |
Daniël – that’s right; thanks for reminding me!
How could I forget that!