[GRASS5] Postgresql and Grass

[Eric G . Miller]

On Fri, Sep 15, 2000 at 01:47:26PM -0600, John Huddleston wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com>
> To: <grass5 at geog.uni-hannover.de>
> Sent: Friday, September 15, 2000 7:53 AM
> Subject: Re: [GRASS5] Postgresql and Grass
> 
> 
> <snip>
> >   A multiple-table (probably relational) design is needed because not all
> > attributes of a single object should (can?) be stored in one table. Soils
> > data, for example.
> >
> <snip>
> 
> I am familiar with the USDA NRCS soils database.  Recently,
> I coverted their schema to an Xml DTD schema.  They are
> going to post data to their users in both Access MDB format
> as well as Xml format.

Is that a DTD or an XML Schema?  The new XML Schema standard looks like
a better way than SGML/XML DTD's.  It has better typing and pattern
matching constraints, to name a couple features.  These are the kinds of
things needed for databases.  It's pretty new, so there aren't many
tools to use it yet ;(

> Going with a proprietary format makes software solutions 
> unattainable for those monetarily challenged.  Plus, software
> becomes obsolete (like Access).  SQL server, Informix,
> and Oracle are a large overhead.    mySQL is low overhead;
> however there is one other consideration...
> 
> The flat ASCII file format has the benefit of being portable.
> If the meta data files are reasonably small, there is no large
> performance penalty for reading them.  Moving to an Xml 
> based format is a reasonable alternative IMHO.

Still, for any reasonably large database some kind of indexing scheme is
necessary for performance.  Typing metadata is also desirable.  As a
note: the preferred standard for XML is Unicode (get those high
characters). I'm sure all our European friends would appreciate not
limiting to ASCII.

> I would be willing to assist in this direction.

Yes, I like this too.

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