Re: sqlite3

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > Which means what exactly?  We use a tool, Diff, to compare text
  > files.  We use another tool, sqldiff, to compare databases.  Where's
  > the crucial difference that justifies rejecting the _capability_ of
  > working with a DB?

The crucial difference between text files and sqlite3 databases,
unless I'm mistaken about the latter, is that text files are simple
and transparent, but sqlite3 databases are not.

Because text files are simple and transparent, you can compare text
files in many different ways: reading the two side by side, using
diff, using wdiff, using M-x compare-windows, and there are probably
more options.  And you can fix them manually, too.

Because sqlite3 databases are neither simple nor transparent, doing
anything with them requires using specific sqlite3 tools.

This is a major advantage for text files.

Using database format has other advantages, and there are cases where
they are important.  Mainly when the text file is big or operating on
it is slow.

Nonetheless I contend that, for a user who stores limited quantities
of persistent Emacs data, the text format is better.

That doesn't imply Emacs should not support sqlite3.  If you happen
to store large amounts of persistent data, you might like
saving persistent Emacs data that way.

But it does imply that sqlite3 should not be the default way to store
persistent Emacs data.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)