Comment by roryirvine

You also begin to recognise that the definition of "boring" changes over time, and - if you wait long enough - fashions begin to repeat themselves.

So, xBase was all you needed in the mid 80s. Then DBM was all you needed in the mid 2000s. Now, in the mid 2020s, we're told that it's SQLite that is all you need.

It was partly true then, and partly true now. But the full story's always been more complicated, so it's still worth considering a range of potential solutions rather than relying on simplistic rules of thumb or slogans.

(Wake me when nosql comes back into fashion, I'll be able to do a great "old man yells at clouds" routine about that one...)