[OSM-dev] Rantings about API 0.6

[marcus.wolschon at googlemail.com]

On Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:11:38 +0100, Raphaël Jacquot <sxpert at sxpert.org>
wrote:
> Frederik Ramm wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Iván Sánchez Ortega wrote:
>>> I just finished coding a bulk importer which interfaces directly to the
>>> MySQL
>>> DB instead of interfacing to the API.
>> 
>> Well then I say let's just politely ask TomH to open up the MySQL TCP 
>> port for public access and create user accounts for us all, and off we 
>> go with factor 13 speed. I'm sure everyone will be pleased ;-)
>> 
>> Jokes aside, does your bulk importer also implement populating the 
>> history tables, making sure that every node referenced by a way (and 
>> every node/way/relation referenced by a relation) actually exists, and 
>> all these totally useless integrity constraints?
> 
> all this should be mostly handled by the db server with appropriate 
> foreign key constraints, not by the application code

I have to agree.
With a database that is supposed to contain all of the planet
this sounds like the job of a foreign key, not application-level-checks.

Marcus