Talk:Simple database

Name change?

The task seems to be about creating a database but does not use that word in the title? How about re-naming the task "Simple database". --Paddy3118 09:57, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

your are right. in fact the exercise from a book that inspired this task is also called simple database.--eMBee 10:13, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

command line interface

Presumably it does not matter if the command line interface uses a command line supplied by the application, the language or the operating system? --Rdm 11:59, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

well, one point of the task is to tie in other tasks like the use of serialization and also reading commandline options. i think building an interface on top of a REPL is worth a separate task: Readline interface (build a simple application with a readline interface.) the functionality of this program may be taken from Simple database)--eMBee 06:20, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

In general, the way I'd do it is to write a library that implements the functionality as a collection of procedures(/classes/whatever) and then an application or two that wraps that into a true command-line interface, an interactive shell, a GUI, a webapp, etc. as necessary. (Well, I wouldn't normally bother with writing an interactive shell as my preferred language already has one, but you get the picture.) Dividing functionality from (user-facing) interface makes testing much easier too. –Donal Fellows 09:05, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

does J use a human readable database?

could you please describe in more detail how the J solution meets the 'human readable database' requirement? the file containing the data itself should be directly readable without additional program support.

using a database dump would be acceptable if it is created every time the database is saved and read back in when the database is loaded.--eMBee 03:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Inserted database dump.--LambertDW 16:27, 9 February 2012 (UTC)