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Why we lost Uber as a user

postgresql.org

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Re: Why we lost Uber as a user

#51

Post by lonelycoder2 »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #41
rimantas wrote: post #21

but have you used MySQL? Maybe I am too nitpicky, but I always get suspicious when people make claims about technology whose name they cannot spell right.

In this case, Fabian's CV (linked from his GitHub profile, linked from his HN profile) does claim MySQL experience - correctly capitalized. But yes, I also get suspicious when people can't spell a technology correctly. For example, anyone who has spent time reading some documentation will know that Lua is capitalized in title case, and not written LUA.

Yes this, it's Xcode not xCode people

Re: Why we lost Uber as a user

#52

Post by [deleted] »

viraptor wrote: post #42
nubela wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't wanna be an Uber investor because choice of DBMS? As a programmer, I think this is the problem with developers thinking that technical problems are a bigger deal than it is.

Mysql eats and corrupts data by design. For a company responding to real time events in physical world, that can be a big issue. I know they're trying to improve their defaults lately, but a lot of weird behaviour remains. And you don't have to be an expert DBA to know that choosing a technology known for silent data corruption is risky.

[deleted]

Re: Why we lost Uber as a user

#53

Post by jamespo »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #33
collyw wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I have a lot more respect for this than say MongoDb which claims to be great at everything.

For the kind of stuff Uber stores, they may actually be doing it wrong (given what that Postgre mailing list post says) because that is one hell of an ugly use case for any DB. I would have tried solving it by loading a dual E5v4 server full of 3TB and a slew of SSDs for L2ARC+ZIL under ZFS: more SSDs > bigger SSDs because the absolute worst case SSD performance that any and all SSDs suffer from is random reads (not…

Maybe Facebook investors should bail out too by that reasoning?

Re: Why we lost Uber as a user

#54

Post by Sean1708 »

czep wrote: post #39
oblio wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the main difference I'd expect from Uber vs a bank is that the majority of Uber employees are (software) engineers while the majority of bank employees are economists.

The majority of Uber employees... are drivers. Clearly proportion of software engineers cannot be a good metric for what makes a "tech" company.

Wouldn't you call drivers (one half of) the customers of Uber? Uber don't hire the drivers (as far as I'm aware), the drivers use Uber to find fares.

Re: Why we lost Uber as a user

#55

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

WoodenChair wrote: post #47
czep wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of Uber employees... are drivers. Clearly proportion of software engineers cannot be a good metric for what makes a "tech" company.

Drivers are independent contractors, not employees.

That's the company line, sure.

Re: Why we lost Uber as a user

#56

Post by gdulli »

brightball wrote: post #45

In reading that, my first thought was "why in the world would Uber do that?" In every single performance tuning a scale story that I've read over the past decade, the very first point of order is: remove joins from high traffic queries. It seems like Uber has gone the complete opposite direction.

You can shape yourself to fit a problem or you can shape a problem to fit you. Wisdom is knowing when to do which.

Re: Why we lost Uber as a user

#57

Post by scardine »

babuskov wrote: post #28
matthewmacleod wrote: post #11

The PoststgreSQL project never fails to impress me. I know that there are some use cases which are not currently covered by it versus alternatives, but I have consistently got the feeling that everybody involved in the project is supremely professional and interested in building an excellent database – and the focus is on how to work to fix these use cases, instead of pointless mudslinging. Class act.

> The PoststgreSQL project never fails to impress me. Except the name is a bit clunky and hard to write ;)

If only a clunky name was the worst problem with some software (even closed source) we have to deal with.

Re: Why we lost Uber as a user

#58

Post by matthewmacleod »

rimantas wrote: post #21

but have you used MySQL? Maybe I am too nitpicky, but I always get suspicious when people make claims about technology whose name they cannot spell right.

That's a bit of a silly complaint – capitalisation in loads of projects is something that lots of people are uncertain about (and, let's be honest, not really that important). Despite having used Mongo for ages, I could not tell you off the top of my head if it's usually rendered as MongoDB, Mongodb, mongodb or something else; that lack of knowledge has no impact on my knowledge of the technology.

Re: Why we lost Uber as a user

#59

Post by ZoFreX »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #41
rimantas wrote: post #21

but have you used MySQL? Maybe I am too nitpicky, but I always get suspicious when people make claims about technology whose name they cannot spell right.

In this case, Fabian's CV (linked from his GitHub profile, linked from his HN profile) does claim MySQL experience - correctly capitalized. But yes, I also get suspicious when people can't spell a technology correctly. For example, anyone who has spent time reading some documentation will know that Lua is capitalized in title case, and not written LUA.

Really? I will claim you will not meet many engineers who know more about Tcl than I do, and I can't remember whether it's TCL or Tcl. The absence of that knowledge has not impeded me from editing the Tcl interpreter itself.

I am not convinced such pedantic measure of spelling is an accurate predictor of knowledge, to me it sounds more like elitism.

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