Re: sqlite3

[Karl Fogel]

On 14 Dec 2021, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> Yes, those are the plusses.  The downsides are the bloat (i don't 
> know by
> how much), the dilution in Emacs's purpose (it's even less the 
> "do one
> thing and do it well" than it was), and I suppose there might 
> even be
> negative security implications (it's a database after all).  Also 
> people
> will be forced to learn new tools, both inside and outside of 
> Emacs.  I
> fear it will create another elite in the Emacs project, those who 
> have
> mastered sqlite, similar to, for example, those who can read and 
> write
> the cl- library.

If it's any comfort, sqlite3 is small, both in source code and 
memory footprint.  (Famously small -- part of its purpose [1] is 
to be small enough that it can be bundled even into constrained 
environments.)  And it's *very* easy to use if one has any SQL-ish 
database experience at all.  At a time when I had zero sqlite 
experience, I switched a MySQL-based application to sqlite3 in a 
couple of hours or so; at no point was it difficult.

Anyone who basically groks SQL databases will grok sqlite very 
quickly.  It's tiny and simple.  It's nowhere near the CL library 
in terms of complexity, and I think there is no danger of creating 
a new elite here.

Best regards,
-Karl


[1] https://sqlite.org/footprint.html