Re: An Introduction to SODA in LedgerSMB

["Joshua D. Drake" <..hidden..>]

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On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 20:06:55 -0800
"Chris Travers" <..hidden..> wrote:

> With the added participation in the development of LedgerSMB, there is
> a greater need for understanding of our architecture and anticipated
> code structure.  Furthermore, some of the structures have evolved in
> the process of development, and additional clarification is necessary.
> 
> 1:  The database should be designed independently of the application
> at first.  All fields in the database should be semantically atomic
> and should be broken out as much as possible.  Additionally, we should
> be searching for additional opportunities to further normalize the
> database to either BCNF or 5NF.

I will be hard pressed to provide any support around the idea of 5NF.
Except in the most rare and loudly argued, proven and documented
practical benefit thereof. /me has yet to see a practical
implementation of 5NF that is anything more than mental masturbation.

You are also introducing scalability considerations far outside the
scope of the average LedgerSMB user when you start trying to move
beyind 4NF.

> Proposed Future Enhancements longer-term:
> Long-run I would like to see more effort made at rich data structures
> as discoverable entities.  This probably means developing conventions
> which allow for custom types which include, as attributes, arrays of
> other custom types.  These issues pose substantial technical changes,
> and cannot happen anyway until we are ready to drop support for
> PostgreSQL 8.1.  However, it is an area I would suggest we start

What is it about 8.1 that is limiting you here?


Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

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