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CockroachDB 1.0

cockroachlabs.com

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Re: CockroachDB 1.0

#51

Post by nathan_f77 »

ccallebs wrote: post #48

First, this is awesome! Congrats to the team for reaching this milestone. Secondly, I think the name is memorable and conveys exactly what it should. If I were ever on an engineering team that chose not to use CockroachDB due to being "grossed out" by the name, I wouldn't be on that engineering team for long. Perhaps someone can explain the knee-jerk reaction to it for me.

I hate the name, and that does put me off from experimenting with it. But I would use it if it was the right tool for the job.

Re: CockroachDB 1.0

#52

Post by jabl »

cwisecarver wrote: post #3

Cue the comments stating that no one will use this because the name is bad.

Just like, err, GIMP?

What is it with Spencer Kimball and naming things that gets people so upset? It's not like other company or product names are that good; we're just used to them.

Some high profile tech companies:

- Google: some propellerhead big number joke (hey, I have a Phd and I don't know offhand how big a googleplex is...)

- Alphabet: Really? That out of ideas?

- Amazon: Some hot snake and insect-infested jungle? Why should I go there?

- Microsoft: At least it gives a hint what the company does, but really... (cue the penis jokes)

- Yahoo: WTF, some slang term I've never heard of before..

- Apple: Mmmm, are they organic and locally produced? Oh, they sell computers and phones? WTF?! (Yes, I've heard the backstory about Alan Turing and the poisoned apple which I guess puts me in a very small minority)

Re: CockroachDB 1.0

#53

Post by benesch »

zzzcpan wrote: post #29
nik736 wrote: post #10

What advantages do I have using Cockroach compared to Postgres, Cassandra, Rethink or MongoDB? (I know that all of them are completely different, that's part of the question)

They are targeting MySQL/Postgres users, basically a post-CAP approach to RDBMS. But if you can work with eventual consistency, they are definitely not your first choice.

[Cockroach Labs engineer here.]

Yes, if very low-latency (i.e., P99 latency sub-5ms) reads and writes are critical to your application, CockroachDB should not be your first choice. That said, one of the primary motivations for CockroachDB is that most existing systems don't handle eventual consistency well. In our experience, most developers will eventually write code that assumes a consistent database, either accidentally or intentionally, because it works most of the time. Dealing with eventual consistency is hard.

Rather than "if you can work with eventual consistency, you should look elsewhere," the sentiment we're trying to cultivate is "if and only if your performance requirements can't work with strong consistency, then you should look elsewhere."

Re: CockroachDB 1.0

#54

Post by deno »

crudbug wrote: post #43
johnwheeler wrote: post #28

I think the name "Cockroach" was a really poor decision from a marketing standpoint. The team intended to convey durability, since cockroaches can live through anything. But when I think of a cockroach, I think, gross, disgusting, etc.

Yeah, I suggested "RoachDB" a while back. Which sounds more pleasant. There was a github issue for this as well.

Was about to suggest that before I saw your comment. It’s like that PostgreSQL vs Postgres naming fiasco all over again.

It’s not even the association, which I actually think is great, the name is simply a mouthful. RoachDB rolls off the tongue just so much better.

Re: CockroachDB 1.0

#55

Post by nathan_f77 »

cwisecarver wrote: post #3

Cue the comments stating that no one will use this because the name is bad.

I think it's one of the worst names I've ever heard. Both because of the bug, but also because of the first syllable. That's not going to stop me from using it if I have to, but I'm certainly less interested in trying it out. And I would be embarrassed to put "Cockroach Expert" on my resume.]

Disclaimer: I've come up with my fair share of bad names. SCM Breeze [1] makes me cringe now.

[1] https://github.com/scmbreeze/scm_breeze

Re: CockroachDB 1.0

#56

Post by anthonylebrun »

Since there's a little side riff about the name going on I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. Personally I love the name. I think it does a great job of conveying the spirit of the project and provides unlimited pun opportunities. Plus it's memorable, just like a real life roach encounter. Unfortunately I'm sure some people will discriminate against your DB on the basis of name alone. That's ludicrous, but that's our species for ya.

Re: CockroachDB 1.0

#57

Post by _jal »

johnwheeler wrote: post #28

I think the name "Cockroach" was a really poor decision from a marketing standpoint. The team intended to convey durability, since cockroaches can live through anything. But when I think of a cockroach, I think, gross, disgusting, etc.

This isn't the place to find out, but I'm curious as to the relative ratio of people who have this reaction.

I don't, at all - I'm vaguely positive towards the name, but in general don't care what things are called, so long as I can remember it. (Although I still maintain that "Paypal" is the stupidest name ever.)

I know people exist who will avoid things simply because they react negatively to the name. How prevalent is this? This isn't about overall product aesthetics/ergonomics/etc., just the name.

Re: CockroachDB 1.0

#58

Post by gervase »

ccallebs wrote: post #48

First, this is awesome! Congrats to the team for reaching this milestone. Secondly, I think the name is memorable and conveys exactly what it should. If I were ever on an engineering team that chose not to use CockroachDB due to being "grossed out" by the name, I wouldn't be on that engineering team for long. Perhaps someone can explain the knee-jerk reaction to it for me.

I might be an interesting case.

I had previously been a big supporter of their name, agreeing with some other posters that it promotes the durability of the system.

However, after a move last year, I was forced to live with cockroaches for approximately 6 months, after never encountering them prior to that.

Since then, I've completely switched camps. Can't see the name without being skeeved out. The reality of cockroaches is so absolutely repulsive that it completely changed my view 180º.

I moved out of that place in November, and haven't seen once since; I'm curious if my aversion will fade over time.

Re: CockroachDB 1.0

#59

Post by arjunnarayan »

elmalto wrote: post #17
irfansharif wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have an comparison page[1] that might potentially be what you're looking for. [1]: https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/cockroachdb-in-comparison...

Do you have any performance comparisons as well?

So performance is complicated. Right now, we’re performance testing CockroachDB regularly, and everything is out in the open. Everything we do is tracked with a GitHub issue with the “perf:” prefix, if you want to follow along.

Here are all our issues that track performance: https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%...

Here’s our open source repository where we keep our load generators: https://github.com/cockroachdb/loadgen

A blog post (well, many) are in the works outlining our performance benchmarking. The situation on the ground is changing fast - our performance has improved rapidly over the past months, and each time we sit down to write a blog post, it gets quickly obsoleted. So, trust that we will have a blog post talking about performance very soon.

Anecdotally, our customers are not finding performance to be a bottleneck. I encourage you to set up a Cockroach cluster, and try the various load generators (we've got the standards and a couple other homegrown ones in the repository).

Re: CockroachDB 1.0

#60

Post by dboreham »

anthonylebrun wrote: post #56

Since there's a little side riff about the name going on I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. Personally I love the name. I think it does a great job of conveying the spirit of the project and provides unlimited pun opportunities. Plus it's memorable, just like a real life roach encounter. Unfortunately I'm sure some people will discriminate against your DB on the basis of name alone. That's ludicrous, but that's our s…

At first when I saw yet more name comments on this thread I felt disappointment that people can't leave the subject alone.

But then I realized that as someone who doesn't care about the name, even positively enjoys it, I have a competitive advantage over those people.

Now I feel good again.

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