NODB --- Uncle Bob on planning without databases

blog.8thlight.com

23 points·rst··4 comments

I guess it depends on what you want to do. Now and then I need to authenticate users and check for their privileges to access my applications. Now and then I need to see who has what privileges on what applications. These both sound to me like cases where one could use a database. Maybe I don't care how the stuff is stored, but the relational model is very handy.

I believe what he's talking about is that you do not NEED a DB for those features. One could implement authentication using a persistence mock. Eventually you will need to replace the mock with some sort of real persistence, but that is unrelated to that use case and should not affect the implementation.

I think the idea he is trying to express is that developers put too much focus on the persistence layer of an application too soon in the development. When you say I am going to use MySQL before you even write a line of code you are automatically trapping yourself and your thinking.

Persistence is meant to be an after thought of a use case; an implementation detail.

Nope.

The data is the center. Databases, frameworks, _and_ use cases change.

Data (information, knowledge) is what persists.

Not sure if your comment was intended to be sarcastic or if it's actually what you think but I'm going to say this anyway.

Data is the byproduct of business logic. You cannot know how it will end up looking before actually thinking of the use cases and sometimes even starting to code them. And off course if you don't know what the data will look like, you cant make an informed decision on what kind of persistence layer you need.

Just my two cents

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