Feb 20
I came across this blog post when I googled rails data type. Below is part of the post:
And what’s the difference between datetime and timestamp? Or binary and boolean? Any database gurus read this?
And one of the comments from the original author:
Ooooh yeah. Duh. Of course binary == storing files in the DB. I guess I was just stuck on “binary†being 0s and 1s and boolean being either a 0 or a 1.
I think we all know it doesn’t take a database guru to answer the question. It’s scary how little computer science knowledge you need to do some “programming”.
Why do you need to be a computer scientist in order to play around with programming? We’ve all got to start somewhere, don’t we?
Wow. That was a fast reply. I guess by computer science I mean some basic programming knowledge. I have a degree in computer science but I by no means consider myself a computer scientist. I’m just suggesting people to learn the basics of programming first, especially if they develop websites for other people for a living.
Hmm, actually the question sounds fairly reasonable to me. Binary is 0’s and 1’s and boolean is true and false. I don’t think knowing the difference with respect to a particular database implementation has anything to do with one’s programming knowledge; rather it has to do with the amount of experience one has with a particular database. Still, it would not be hard to find out the difference simply by looking up the reference info for the given database. From my university experience I would say that computer science tends to have little to do with programming!