Re: Just say no to threads [Was: Software architecture]

From: Kevin Cline (kevin.cline_at_gmail.com)
Date: 10/31/04 

Date: 30 Oct 2004 22:02:33 -0700

Andrew McDonagh <news@andrewcdonagh.f2s.com> wrote in message news:<cltr89$b95$1@news.freedom2surf.net>...
> Debbie Craft wrote:
> >
>
> snipped
>
> >> If I don't have the experience, then the speed-bump to add threads (or
> >> databases, distributed processing, or whatever) is greater.
> >
> >
> > You have done stuff before? If you have done databases before
> > it's no big deal. There is little risk. If you haven't then
> > proceed slowly. They aren't the same context and the same
> > blind rule won't work.
> >
>
> With Phlips and yours conversation in mind, lets say you are about to
> start on a project that has the need for persisting its object model.
>
> Would you :
>
> a) Go straight for RDBMS cause you have done it before.
> b) Use a flat file cause you have done it before.
> c) some other means cause you have done it before..

I would figure out the real need to be satisfied this iteration. Then
I would write a test for it. Then I would figure out how to pass that
test in the easiest way -- maybe use an RDBMS if I had one handy.
With the availability of MySQL, an RDBMS is always reasonably handy.
Ideally I would have some high-level persistence library handy, and
could just use that.

Generally, for me, "done it before" is not a good reason to write
code, although sometimes it can often be a good reason not to write
code. I've worked with a bunch of "done it before" telecom engineers,
and mostly what that meant was that they were going to recapitulate
the same workarounds they needed when developing for one-megahertz
CPUs with 4MB of RAM even though they were now developing for a 500MHz
CPUs with 1GB of RAM.

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