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SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases (2021)

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Re: SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases (2021)

#211

Post by JohnBooty »

irskep wrote: post #148
JohnBooty wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to be a full-blown sysadmin to know how to do basic deployments, and learning these things will make you a better developer. Yes. True. However, it is also true that we have a limited amount of time per week and a limited number of weeks on Earth. Time spent learning sysadmin-y stuff is less time spent mastering developer-y stuff. Think about what it means to be a "full stack" engineer in 2023: - Unix…

I really appreciate you taking the time to respond with these details. I do go deep on application-level tech (CSS, HTML, JS with and without frameworks, iOS dev, etc) and it's always disheartening for people to claim that choosing not to focus on specific technologies makes you a worse human being. The other thing that's going completely over people's heads here is that I made this repo with the intent of helping ot…

And thank you so much for doing what you do. That use case of, "how the heck do I host my portfolio projects?" is really unreasonably confusing in 2023. You are working to remove a significant barrier to entry in our industry.

Re: SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases (2021)

#212

Post by crazygringo »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #168

I agree. Most uses of databases definitely don't need to grow larger than, say, a single filesystem, or a single application, or a single host, or a single network, or a single geographical region, or a single customer, or a single organization, or a single global network of customers in organizations in regions on networks on hosts on applications on filesystems. There could not be any features of any other database…

I'm dying. I "agree" in the same way you do, but what a way with words!

But seriously, those points exactly.

Re: SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases (2021)

#213

Post by justinclift »

berdon wrote: post #177
irskep wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can do all that, but have you also written video games, UI frameworks, compilers, Twitter bots, localization tools, and web-based whiteboards? Have you ever made a music video or gotten a novel published? If not, why not? I'd say it's because you had different interests and spent your time elsewhere, which is completely fine and not a problem at all. People are allowed to have their own interests and explor…

No whiteboard, music video, or a published novel yet. But, come now, his point was he’d never worked with a full stack developer and that they don’t exist.

> that they don’t exist

To my reading, that's not what was claimed.

It seemed to be more like "they exist, but most of them turned out to be pretty shallow with each of the technologies".

Re: SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases (2021)

#215

Post by crazygringo »

joshspankit wrote: post #156

I’ve argued this before and I’ll argue it here now: Modern computers are fast enough that in many cases “the only database you will ever need” can be files on the filesystem. For example “1 row = 1 file”. It brings additional benefits as well: for low-write applications you can use git to get a history (+transactions if you store them in the log), backups are super easy, replication is trivial. For higher-write appli…

I honestly can't tell if this is satire or not.

But I think I'm curious either way: how do you index a column?

Re: SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases (2021)

#216

Post by chillfox »

nijave wrote: post #185
chillfox wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time people separate the app and database into two different VMs that the infrastructure team then runs on the same box. edit: This is done not because of any considered technical reasons, but because that's how one learned to deploy apps.

Technical reason is to limit blast radius, easier permission management, easier scaling. For blast radius, you have things like patching (you don't want to botch the database accidentally updating a shared dependency with your app), resource management (don't want your DB to eat all the RAM or I/O and kill your app), if someone botches maintenance there's less to break at once You don't have to use VMs but they're on…

I did not say that there does not exist good reasons to do it that way. I said it is usually not a considered choice.

Re: SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases (2021)

#217

Post by dietrichepp »

canadianfella wrote: post #122
irskep wrote: post #29

This sentiment pops up regularly on HN, and I've seen at least one article per month for the past few months, but the trouble is, none of them seem to help you actually deploy it. They assume you're comfortable spinning up public web servers. If you want to use a PaaS to deploy an app, because you don't want to spend your time learning to be a sysadmin, then all the tutorials are going to put you on the Postgres path…

Why do people use hosted databases instead of just installing them? I don’t understand it.

I've done self-hosted databases. It's easy to take it for granted if you've done it before, because once you've done it, you know that it is easy. But, even though it easy, it requires work. You have to spend time learning how to do it well, and you have to go through all the steps setting things up and configuring it. There's all the backups and monitoring that you want. Death by a thousand cuts, and all that.

I still self-host databases for personal projects, but I can see why so many people don't want to bother. When I've done it professionally, I was basically working as a sysadmin and managing stuff like database servers was a core job function, not something tacked on to a development job.

Re: SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases (2021)

#218

Post by yawaramin »

benhoyt wrote: post #186
irskep wrote: post #29

This sentiment pops up regularly on HN, and I've seen at least one article per month for the past few months, but the trouble is, none of them seem to help you actually deploy it. They assume you're comfortable spinning up public web servers. If you want to use a PaaS to deploy an app, because you don't want to spend your time learning to be a sysadmin, then all the tutorials are going to put you on the Postgres path…

Just this morning I was wondering about where to host the next iteration of my side project (GiftyWeddings.com). It currently uses Go + SQLite, and I deploy it to a small $9/month instance on AWS, but the setup involves a bunch more Ansible and messing around than I want, and I'm not even sure the Ansible scripts I wrote a few years ago would work anymore (or work a second time). A simpler PaaS-like system that works…

PocketBase is worth a look. It can run standalone as an API server that wraps access to the SQLite database, or it can be used as a Go framework.

Re: SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases (2021)

#219

Post by joshspankit »

EGreg wrote: post #159
joshspankit wrote: post #156

I’ve argued this before and I’ll argue it here now: Modern computers are fast enough that in many cases “the only database you will ever need” can be files on the filesystem. For example “1 row = 1 file”. It brings additional benefits as well: for low-write applications you can use git to get a history (+transactions if you store them in the log), backups are super easy, replication is trivial. For higher-write appli…

Transactions, really? How do you lock rows, how do you have relations, how do you do joins? In fact, ext3 can only handle about 50,000 files in one directory. So you'll have to split up your "primary key" into letters like abc/def/foo like we do

The bad but valid answer to locking rows and doing relations is that you write the logic in to your application. The better answer is of course that if you’re doing specific types of complex things a DB is a better fit.

Honestly splitting in to nested subfolders is not big deal anymore, it’s a single function you can write even if you’re having a “.10X” day.

Re: SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases (2021)

#220

Post by deathclassic »

adamckay wrote: post #101
deathclassic wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would probably be harder to bend Django to use SQLite as a backend then it would be to just setup MySQL or PostGRES and use the existing Django tooling for it.

I take it you're not aware that the default database of new Django projects created by the admin commands is SQLite?

It's been at least 3 years since I did anything with django and that was with mysql.
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