sqlite3 and dates

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 10:11 PM, Johannes Bauer <dfnsonfsduifb at gmx.de> wrote:
> On 18.02.2015 08:05, Chris Angelico wrote:
>
>> But if you need more facilities than SQLite3 can offer, maybe it's
>> time to move up to a full database server, instead of local files.
>> Switching to PostgreSQL will give you all those kinds of features,
>> plus a lot of other things that I would have thought pretty basic -
>> like ALTER TABLE. It was quite a surprise to learn that SQLite3 didn't
>> support that.
>
> I see you're running a lawnmower. Maybe you should switch to a combine
> harvester. That'll get you extra features like a reciprocating knife
> cutter bar. I was quite surprised that regular lawnmowers don't support
> those.

SQLite3 is fine for something that's basically just a more structured
version of a flat file. You assume that nobody but you has the file
open, and you manipulate it just the same as if it were a big fat blob
of JSON, but thanks to SQLite, you don't have to rewrite the whole
file every time you make a small change. That's fine. But it's the
wrong tool for any job involving multiple users over a network, and
quite probably the wrong tool for a lot of other jobs too. It's the
smallest-end piece of software that can truly be called a database. I
would consider it to be the wrong database for serious accounting
work, and that's based on the ranting of a majorly-annoyed accountant
who had to deal with issues in professional systems that had made
similar choices in back-end selection.

You're welcome to disagree, but since PostgreSQL doesn't cost any
money and (on Linux at least; can't speak for other platforms) doesn't
take significant effort to set up, I will continue to recommend it.

ChrisA