>> The thing about a database is... the DBMS knows how to read the data. 
>> And if you change how the data is stored (e.g., add a new field, 
>> change a table from heap-organised to index-organised, etc.), as long 
>> as the DBMS still knows how to read it, the client applications don't 
>> need to *care*, and they don't break.
> 
> Well, no. That's true of RDBMs, which is why they were revolutionary. It 
> isn't true of database engines that were around before the relational 
> model.
> 
>> (Hell, if you add new fields or change the type of existing ones, you 
>> can even create a "view" for the old apps to work off. They'll never 
>> know the difference!)
> 
> Yes. That was the amazingly cool thing about relational databases that 
> you didn't get out of CODASYL databases or hierarchical databases or 
> whatever.

Yeah, well, I have little concept of what other kinds of databases have 
existed other than relational ones.

(We did hear some talk at uni about people working on object databases, 
but nobody could really figure out precisely what such a term means...)

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