UNIX relational database management

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1. k310Jun 2023
   Old-timer here. I learned to use the unix built-ins via Unix Text Processing, Unix Power Tools, and UNIX Relational Database Management. The last of these is a commercial version of Walter Hobbs' work at RAND. The code is avalable at github. https://github.com/ironsmith58/RDB These were a great way to learn shell commands and perl. (and a free database)

   The Wiki Way was the first book on wikis.

   Another book that helped me was "The Addictive Organization" by Anne Wilson Schaef. It's just amazing how common behaviors are that are normally associated with addiction. Principally: Projection and denial.

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2. kingmanazJun 2017
   Some suggestions:

   Direct your focus to plain Bourne sh as much as possible, moving on only after you understand what enhancements over vanilla sh Korn or Bourne-Again actually offer.

   Pick up Manis, Schaffer, and Jorgensen's "UNIX Relational Database Management" and work through the examples to get a feel for the philosophy behind large, complex applications written in shell.

   Join a Unix community (sdf.org) and try to do useful things with shell (e.g. cron-schedule stock quote e-mail notifications via shell scripts, etc).

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3. kingmanazApr 2014
   If any here think fleitz is joking, please pick up a used copy of Manis, Schaffer, and Jorgensen's "Unix Relational Database Management". The authors create a relational database with little more than awk, cat, grep, od, sed, spell, tail and a bit of bourne-shell glue. After covering the basics of tables and relational theory, the authors create a small-business accounting system. The database became a commercial product (/rdb) and is still sold and used today (allegedly in hospitals).
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4. kingmanazJun 2013
   A re-write of "starbase" in Go would be a fun project for someone with the time.

   http://hopper.si.edu/wiki/mmti/Starbase

   Starbase is pattered after "/rdb", a flat-file relational database adhering to the Unix-philosophy, ie., piping together small, single-purpose tools. The approach is covered in "Unix Relational Database Management" ( http://www.amazon.com/Relational-Database-Management-Prentic... ), a book which anticipated the "suckless" movement by a couple of decades ( http://suckless.org/philosophy ).

   It would be nice to see something like /rdb, except with: 1. Better transparent support for optional indexes when querying. 2. Automatic updating of indexes when deleting/updating data. 3. Scripts included in the package written in "rc" rather than "sh". 4. BSD license.

   Perhaps something like tiedot could be built on top of the above: a single, statically-compiled binary to expose the flat file database through a JSON/REST interface and to honor the Unix user/group table-file permissions through standard HTTP authentication. Forms could be designed against the web service while system administration is handled with as much of the unix system as possible.

   Such a stack would be great for smaller start ups and where *nix experience is available.

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