[Chandler-dev] [Sum] The Great Architecture Discussion of 2007

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 09:17 AM 10/10/2007 -0700, D John Anderson wrote:
>I think we are better off to evolve the existing repository rather
>than completely replace it with and object relational mapping on top
>of SQL at this stage of Chandler's life.
>
>I say this is because I believe such a replacement is a very large
>task with an uncertain outcome. I'd rather work on eliminating extra
>unnecessary notifications which I think will give us improved
>performance with less work.

On any *single* criterion (performance, scalability, testability, 
complexity reduction, etc.), you can easily come up with one or more 
proposals that will achieve some improvement on that criterion at a 
lower cost compared to the *whole* of what I've proposed.

But no counter-proposal made so far can match mine on *all* of the 
criteria, nor can any *combination* of those counter-proposals match 
mine in overall cost-benefit ratios, after you add up their individual costs.

So if we want to achieve *all* the goals in a short time frame, mine 
is in fact the most cost-effective proposal in terms of total work expenditure.

Now, I will be the first to admit that my proposals are not always 
easy to grasp ahead of time, precisely because they are usually of a 
"kill many birds with one stone" nature.  (For the animal lovers, 
let's just say the birds have bird flu and we need to stop them from 
spreading it and killing other birds ;-) )

And while I am now proposing to kill five or six birds with two or 
three stones, I keep seeing counter arguments of the form, "but 
that's too much work to kill *one* bird."

Yes, I know.  But we need to kill them *all*, and it's a lot cheaper 
(cheep-er?) overall to hit a group of them with concentrated fire.  :)

Now, one can certainly conjecture and speculate about whether my 
proposal is practical or possible, but I would point out that my 
track record at predicting the risk, practicality, and above all 
*benefit* of my designs at OSAF is 100%, and the track record of 
anyone who's said one of my proposals would not be possible or workable is 0%.

And that's not conjecture or speculation.  :)