On Tue, 2022-02-22 at 23:10 +0100, Christian Grün wrote:
The other contributor's comments were deeply rooted in particular assumptions that stood in stark contrast to the scenario I had described.
It always depends on the way you interpret others’ comments. But we're getting circular again (there must be a reason for it ;).
To me, "embedded" and "standalone" carry the same implication in the context of a database
I see. With standalone, we want to indicate that the application stands “on its own” and needs no external accessors. In contrast, something that's embedded is fully dependant on other applications.
In other words, if we use BaseX embedded, we import it as Java library. If we use it as standalone processor, we access it externally, similar to other installed applications and along with all their idiosyncrasies.
Would Java be an option for you?
I understand the distinction. It seems the issues I originally raised would be the same in both cases. The difference is whether the application would be built as a collection of scripts versus a full Java application.
I had planned to begin with Bash scripts calling the command-line database application, and then migrate to a more integrated application model (e.g. Java application using a library) only if required by the evolving needs. Frankly, I would hope to avoid the latter for the foreseeable future, as both the overall application complexity and maintenance resources are rather limited.
However, as I explained, the overriding concern is whether the databases may be maintained inside of projects' folders without any dependency on resources elsewhere on the file system.