> On Fri, 2007-03-02 at 22:53 -0500, markw@mohawksoft.com wrote:
>> > On Fri, 2007-03-02 at 17:31 -0500, markw@mohawksoft.com wrote:
>> >> > Your claim is that in ALL cases using a file system to store images
>> >> > is preferable to using a database. As such, you claim that using a
>> dB
>> >> > for storing images is "bad" practice.
>> >>
>> >> That is fairly close to my professional opinion, yes. There is, of
>> >> course,
>> >> always the exception to any rule, but in general, I would call
>> storing
>> >> bitmaps in a database without a damn good reason, a bad practice,
>> yes.
>> >
>> > Ah, you've changed your tune. Thanks for coming out.
>>
>> I haven't changed any tune what so ever.
>
> Uhm, ooooookaaaaaay dooookaaaaaaaay then. I guess it's a good thing that
> the archives tell the real story... not to mention the readers of the
> list don't exactly have short memories.
>
> Cheers,
> Rob.

Two things: First, I do want to apologize for being kind of a wise ass, I
was just trying to be funny, but some of it proably came out as insulting.

Anyway, to re-use an analogy. Using a wrench as a hammer is never the
correct use of a wrench. Does that mean that I've never used a wrench as a
hammer? No of course not.

The same goes for the bitmap data in the database, I can't come up with a
single valid engineering reason to do it, but there are exceptions that
are still not good engineering solutions but given time constraints may be
expedient. That being said, a good engineer will acknowledge that it is a
sub-optimal implementation and fix it in the next rev.

At its core, a lot of web guys don't understand "databases" or SQL in
general. Using a database is different from designing one. Don't take this
as a slam or an insult, fields of expertise force us all to specialize.
Take me for instance, I know the HTML RFC, I know the PHP internals. (I've
written a few extensions including a serializer), but the actual web code
is something I'm not good at. I spend more time looking up function
references than actually coding.

I know a bit about what I'm talking about. SQL databases have some
appalling behaviors under a highly active and dynamic data (a pretty low
insert/update ratio) environment. As a rule, you should keep what ever
does not need to be in a database out of the database. I've stated a good
few reasons in the various postings.

Take my advice or not, but rather than argue about it, take a good look at
the internals of a database and really get to understand it, you'll come
to the same conclusions.

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