

We Don't Need a "Database" - davidkellis
http://rashkovskii.com/articles/2008/5/16/we-don-t-need-a-database

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bigtoga
Written by a programmer who has a myopic view of how data is used. Data is not
used by just one application in the real world over time; if your app that
uses the stupid database becomes popular (or your startup becomes popular),
you will now need many interfaces into that database - reporting, analysis,
OLTP, maintenance. By putting it in a "persistence-aware programming
environment" you're *&%$ing everyone else except you. Woohoo!

~~~
sah
This problem applies to using any new or non-standard technology without
abundant interfaces to a wide variety of tools. That's the downside. The
advantage is that you get to use something better, and maybe it makes you more
productive, and maybe it catches on and advances the state of the art.

If everyone always used whatever interfaced best with the rest of the world,
new technologies would be adopted much more slowly.

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davidkellis
From the article: "What we really need is a persistence-aware programming
environment"

This really hits home with me. I've been working on a data model for one of my
projects. I'm trying to model time series data so that I can perform analysis
of the data as it changes over time. I've been thinking about how best to
model this using the relational model, but even after a few months I've been
unable to develop a relational model that I'm happy with.

The more I read about MapReduce and similar methods of computation, the more I
become convinced that I could model time series data and perform analysis of
it with a method of computation that is more "integrated" into my data store.
Essentially, I'd like to be able to use my programming language of choice (at
the moment, that's ruby) to perform queries on my datastore that for one
reason or another I've been unable to represent in SQL or a similar query
language.

~~~
avibryant
Agreed. ObPlug: if you're coming to RailsConf, stop by my talk on MagLev
(<http://ruby.gemstone.com>), which could certainly be described as "a
persistence-aware programming environment" for Ruby.

~~~
yrashk
I wish I was able to afford to come to RailsConf, I was interested to visit it
to be able to chat about MagLev and Rubinius specifically

------
ralph
"We have persistent objects, they're called files." -- Ken Thompson.

~~~
vdm
With a 4KB minimum block size? That should do nicely for all of my 100 byte
postal addresses; NOT.

