From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Philip K." Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Proposal for an Emacs User Survey Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2020 19:59:28 +0200 Message-ID: <875z7gabjz.fsf@posteo.net> References: <87ft6m9xmy.fsf@posteo.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="9157"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/27.1 (gnu/linux) Cc: abrochard@gmx.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Richard Stallman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Sun Oct 11 20:01:06 2020 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1kRfec-0002HF-1O for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 11 Oct 2020 20:01:06 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:40114 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kRfea-0003mx-ML for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 11 Oct 2020 14:01:04 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:60644) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kRfd9-00038R-Hi for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 11 Oct 2020 13:59:35 -0400 Original-Received: from mout01.posteo.de ([185.67.36.65]:47649) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kRfd6-0004c1-I3 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 11 Oct 2020 13:59:35 -0400 Original-Received: from submission (posteo.de [89.146.220.130]) by mout01.posteo.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8736616005F for ; Sun, 11 Oct 2020 19:59:29 +0200 (CEST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=posteo.net; s=2017; t=1602439169; bh=0LKpY3BjTxOlFCZ9QB4dcfERJ953e4OhCLXgdFNCsm8=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:Date:From; b=bMfG9HhynRZSb9qAsReXhcVbqE2EiJVcm4PafuJivizWqFo/gHVnn4788U8cmDc2i sgH3Fj/M0ljB+7uEB0DGqsr07m0p8WIOjHQpAb816lFukgbMdRIqShhDJ7g/2v5Ab/ xP6wZx8hbRQwhYOep8k1KKfR4UTX0cVY1a9nyzL+SFPdZTkUygWd3G23zifLNOE1Ix MAxurWJtfp4YKpPHLE7e15996Q/gX3AqvqqhAS2bqIYiyUmzD00DnztP7I5o9CHdNq qenSEdAZpo1Nq9K1tUphD90rD2uy0MyIpinEAdN3Zlr5IxJz9CHcDMeyklY6YwsHnZ 4nLohHEl/xTHg== Original-Received: from customer (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by submission (posteo.de) with ESMTPSA id 4C8V1s0gWNz9rxN; Sun, 11 Oct 2020 19:59:28 +0200 (CEST) In-Reply-To: (Richard Stallman's message of "Sun, 11 Oct 2020 01:24:33 -0400") Received-SPF: pass client-ip=185.67.36.65; envelope-from=philipk@posteo.net; helo=mout01.posteo.de X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: First seen = 2020/10/11 13:48:01 X-ACL-Warn: Detected OS = Linux 3.11 and newer [fuzzy] X-Spam_score_int: -27 X-Spam_score: -2.8 X-Spam_bar: -- X-Spam_report: (-2.8 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, DKIM_SIGNED=0.1, DKIM_VALID=-0.1, DKIM_VALID_AU=-0.1, DKIM_VALID_EF=-0.1, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW=-0.7, RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_H4=-0.01, RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_WL=-0.01, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:257383 Archived-At: Richard Stallman writes: > > >>> - mysql instead of sqlite, which also implies a mysql instance running > > >> > > >> SQLite is actually surprisingly resilient, according to [0]: > > It would be a mistake to put the input into any sort of database > program. That would only make things difficult and increase the > special knowledge people would need in order to work on this. > > Here's the simple and clean way to do it. > > Each time a user responds, convert all the answers into a formulaic > piece text which states the questions and answers. Email that to a > certain address, which will accumulate these messages in one inbox > file. > > Then it will be simple to do all sorts of counting or analysis on that > file. The issue I see here is that if you expert plain-text responses, someone might just submit something that breaks the format, or even submit an email written in HTML. So the data couldn't just be stored in plain text, but would have to at least have some decoding to correctly parse the message, and some encoding the safely store the message. You wouldn't want someone who could submit 1000 fake or troll responses, just because they know what what's going on behind the scenes. > Database programs are useful when there are hundreds of thousands of > records and you need to search for any one of them. Or when the data > are being altered. We will not have so many answers, and each one > will never change once sent. Databases are useful whenever you've got data to work with. SQLite is useful at whatever sale one is working at, from browsers to cars. And besides, it's safer to use than directly writing to the file system (see https://danluu.com/file-consistency/ for more details). And generally speaking, file systems are also just databases, just that they are directory-oriented, not record-oriented and usually have better support in regards to OS primitives. All in all, I don't this that this should be an issue, SQLite is well documented, and can easily be extracted into whatever format someone might need or want, just easier than with a mailbox or other classical unix-like approaches. -- Philip K.