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SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format

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Re: SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format

#21

Post by DeathArrow »

Fwirt wrote: post #5
alexpotato wrote: post #2

I have always loved SQLite. I have also heard that some firms ban its use. Why? Because it makes it SO easy to set up a database for your app that you end up with a super critical component of your application that looks exactly like a file. A file that can have any extension. And that file can be copied around to other servers. Even if there is PII in that file. Multiply this times the number of applications in your…

The question is, do the same firms ban Excel? Excel spreadsheets often end up as shadow databases in unlikely places.

Do companies ban text files? Text files are used to store data.

Re: SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format

#22

Post by tombert »

On a recent project I have needed to use exFAT. exFAT is terrible for a number of reasons, but in my case the thing I had to deal with was the lack of journaling, which had the possibility to corrupt files if there were a power interruption or something.

I initially was writing a series of files and doing some quasi-append-only things with new files and compacting the old one to sort of reinvent journaling. What I did more or less worked but it was very ad hoc and bad and was probably hiding a lot of bugs I would eventually have to fix later.

And then I remembered SQLite. I realized that ACID was probably safe enough for my needs, and then all the hard parts I was reinventing were probably faster and less likely to break if I used something thoroughly audited and tested, so I reworked everything I was doing to SQLite and it worked fine.

I wish exFAT would die in a fire and a journaling filesystem would replace it as the "one filesystem you can use everywhere", but until it does I'm grateful SQLite exists.

Re: SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format

#23

Post by faangguyindia »

I went from thinking “SQLite is a toy product, not reliable for real data" to "lets use SQLite for almost everything"

SQLite is very good if you can fit into the single writer, multiple readers pattern; you'll never lose data if you use the correct settings, which takes a minute of Google search to figure out.

Today, most of my apps are simply go binary + SQLite + systemd service file.

I've yet to lose data. Performance is great and plenty for most apps

Re: SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format

#24

Post by [deleted] »

Fwirt wrote: post #5
alexpotato wrote: post #2

I have always loved SQLite. I have also heard that some firms ban its use. Why? Because it makes it SO easy to set up a database for your app that you end up with a super critical component of your application that looks exactly like a file. A file that can have any extension. And that file can be copied around to other servers. Even if there is PII in that file. Multiply this times the number of applications in your…

The question is, do the same firms ban Excel? Excel spreadsheets often end up as shadow databases in unlikely places.

[deleted]

Re: SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format

#25

Post by frollogaston »

rmunn wrote: post #16

> As of this writing (2018-05-29) ... So this news is nearly six EIGHT years old. But I didn't happen to know about it until now, so that's not a complaint at all; rather, this is a thank-you for posting it. (Thanks for the correction. Brief brain malfunction in the math department there).

Was going to say, was having deja vu reading this

Re: SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format

#26

Post by mmooss »

tombert wrote: post #22

On a recent project I have needed to use exFAT. exFAT is terrible for a number of reasons, but in my case the thing I had to deal with was the lack of journaling, which had the possibility to corrupt files if there were a power interruption or something. I initially was writing a series of files and doing some quasi-append-only things with new files and compacting the old one to sort of reinvent journaling. What I di…

> I wish exFAT would die in a fire and a journaling filesystem would replace it as the "one filesystem you can use everywhere"

Where exactly is everywhere? Win32? All of Linux? BSDs? MacOS? IOS? ...

Re: SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format

#27

Post by topham »

tombert wrote: post #22

On a recent project I have needed to use exFAT. exFAT is terrible for a number of reasons, but in my case the thing I had to deal with was the lack of journaling, which had the possibility to corrupt files if there were a power interruption or something. I initially was writing a series of files and doing some quasi-append-only things with new files and compacting the old one to sort of reinvent journaling. What I di…

The problem with it is you didn't solve your biggest actual problem, you just haven't had a problem bite you in the ass yet so you think your problem is solved.

Re: SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format

#29

Post by TJSomething »

frollogaston wrote: post #9
hermitShell wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sane thing would be to ban Excel and promote SQLite. Excel is often used for tabulated text (issue tracking) not calculations. Perfect use case for a relational db

Excel is made for calculations. But if you make it hard to make a DB, people will abuse Excel as a DB.

I mean, it might have been at first, but Microsoft figured out that the majority of users for lists without formulas in 1993 and they've strategized around that. IMHO, the biggest concession to this was when they added Power Query to core Excel in 2016.
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