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What if OpenDocument used SQLite? (2014)

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Re: What if OpenDocument used SQLite? (2014)

#11

I was optimistic that Audacity adopting SQLite would be a substantial improvement in its file saving capabilities. In practice I encountered many gotchas: - On Linux, saving into a new file onto a root-owned but world-writable NTFS mount created in /etc/fstab, fails due to permission errors or something. Saving into an existing file works as usual. - Files are modified on disk when you edit the project in the program…

Yes it should replicate the functionality user expects - save everything into temporary file and overwrite the original file only on explicit save action.

As for Git, it would benefit from using text format specifically aimed for easy diffing/merging. No idea how easy the sqlite dump is in this regard.

Re: What if OpenDocument used SQLite? (2014)

#13

> since OpenDocument predates SQLite This shocked me. Impressive how far SQLite's come in such a short space of time.

Hmm, me too, and Wikipedia says: > OpenDocument - Initial release: 1 May 2005; 18 years ago > SQLite - Initial release: 17 August 2000; 23 years ago Wonder what gives.

Hah - that tallies with my instinct on ODF at least. I'm confused too, then.

Re: What if OpenDocument used SQLite? (2014)

#14
Coupling a file format to SQLite smells wrong.

SQLite is good, but it is also fairly unique in this space. Why? Because it’s hard to replicate everything it does, because it does a lot.

But… for this case, do we need it do a lot? No, not really. We don’t need the full SQL standard, a query optimiser, etc etc for basic (+ safe) transaction semantics and the ability to store data in a basic table structure.

Perhaps there is a better file format we can use, but it would be better if it was decoupled from SQLite.

Re: What if OpenDocument used SQLite? (2014)

#15

I was optimistic that Audacity adopting SQLite would be a substantial improvement in its file saving capabilities. In practice I encountered many gotchas: - On Linux, saving into a new file onto a root-owned but world-writable NTFS mount created in /etc/fstab, fails due to permission errors or something. Saving into an existing file works as usual. - Files are modified on disk when you edit the project in the program…

My wife uses Audacity all day and every few days there is a corrupt sqlite file (duplicate key) which cannot be (as far as we know) repaired/reimported etc from Audacity. I can fix it manually if it's important, but usually just throw the file away and things work again.

Re: What if OpenDocument used SQLite? (2014)

#16

> since OpenDocument predates SQLite This shocked me. Impressive how far SQLite's come in such a short space of time.

Hmm, me too, and Wikipedia says: > OpenDocument - Initial release: 1 May 2005; 18 years ago > SQLite - Initial release: 17 August 2000; 23 years ago Wonder what gives.

OpenDocument traces it's ancestry to OpenOffice XML format, which traces it's ancestry to StarOffice, which was xmlized around the time Sun bought it in 1999

Re: What if OpenDocument used SQLite? (2014)

#17

deleted.

> Nobody really believes that OpenDocument should be changed to use SQLite as its container instead of ZIP. […] Rather, the point of this article is to use OpenDocument as a concrete example of how SQLite can be used to build better application file formats for future projects.

Re: What if OpenDocument used SQLite? (2014)

#19

> since OpenDocument predates SQLite This shocked me. Impressive how far SQLite's come in such a short space of time.

Hmm, me too, and Wikipedia says: > OpenDocument - Initial release: 1 May 2005; 18 years ago > SQLite - Initial release: 17 August 2000; 23 years ago Wonder what gives.

[deleted]

Re: What if OpenDocument used SQLite? (2014)

#20
post #14

Coupling a file format to SQLite smells wrong. SQLite is good, but it is also fairly unique in this space. Why? Because it’s hard to replicate everything it does, because it does a lot. But… for this case, do we need it do a lot? No, not really. We don’t need the full SQL standard, a query optimiser, etc etc for basic (+ safe) transaction semantics and the ability to store data in a basic table structure. Perhaps the…

Have you checked the Apple apps? Most of them use SQLite as storage format. iMovie, iPhoto, Voice recording…

Same with Docker. Can’t be that wrong?

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