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Smaller is better – The rise, fall, and rise of flat file software

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Re: Smaller is better – The rise, fall, and rise of flat file software

#31

Post by tarr11 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #30

Maybe it is just a reflection on the state of filesystems vs databases. There is no fundamental difference between a database and a flat file, it is all bytes on a disk/memory in the end. So it is mostly a question of balancing the roles of the hardware, OS, and application software. For example, if the reason you are using a database is that it does a particularly good job at limiting disk IO, then it may not be nec…

Some databases also have the ability to be instantly portable, like a sqlite file.

You can tar up your flat files as well, but that is a separate process and can be time consuming for larger directories.

Perhaps there is a use case for a file system backed by portable database like sqlite, such that you can just mount the volume and send it around without pain, but can prefer to use normal command line utils (ls, rm, grep, etc) instead of interacting via SQL.

Re: Smaller is better – The rise, fall, and rise of flat file software

#32

Post by andi999 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #10
replygirl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i've found that folks without git experience are fine to use github.com as a cms when you take 20 minutes to show them how to edit, submit as a pr, and check the preview deployment before merging

Yep. There is a long line of people complaining that git is hard to learn on the internet. But I've never met anybody on the real world that had any problem with the basic cycle of edit - push - review - accept (or the even simpler edit - push).

You can directly push after edit? No add, no commit?

Re: Smaller is better – The rise, fall, and rise of flat file software

#33

Post by tokumei »

config_yml wrote: post #23

I remember when I got started with webdev around 2002, a lot was built on flat files. And so did I, because that’s how my “internet mentor” did it: guestbooks, bulletin boards, mailing lists, shoutboxes, CMSs. All in flat files, except I used php and not Perl like him.

Same here. The first real dynamic website I created used flat files and PHP, because that’s what I learned from friends online. Then shortly afterwards I taught myself how to use MySQL.

I don’t use MySQL or PHP for anything nowadays, but was extremely useful to learn in the early 2000s.

Re: Smaller is better – The rise, fall, and rise of flat file software

#34

Post by ReactiveJelly »

tarr11 wrote: post #31
GuB-42 wrote: post #30

Maybe it is just a reflection on the state of filesystems vs databases. There is no fundamental difference between a database and a flat file, it is all bytes on a disk/memory in the end. So it is mostly a question of balancing the roles of the hardware, OS, and application software. For example, if the reason you are using a database is that it does a particularly good job at limiting disk IO, then it may not be nec…

Some databases also have the ability to be instantly portable, like a sqlite file. You can tar up your flat files as well, but that is a separate process and can be time consuming for larger directories. Perhaps there is a use case for a file system backed by portable database like sqlite, such that you can just mount the volume and send it around without pain, but can prefer to use normal command line utils (ls, rm,…

If you're running Postgres in Docker, you can just stop the container and tar up the data volume and start it somewhere else

(This also works without Docker of course, but Docker makes me feel safer when I do stuff like this)

Re: Smaller is better – The rise, fall, and rise of flat file software

#35

Post by marcosdumay »

andi999 wrote: post #32
marcosdumay wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. There is a long line of people complaining that git is hard to learn on the internet. But I've never met anybody on the real world that had any problem with the basic cycle of edit - push - review - accept (or the even simpler edit - push).

You can directly push after edit? No add, no commit?

Some software join it all in one step. Like the GitHub GUI the GP is talking about.

Re: Smaller is better – The rise, fall, and rise of flat file software

#37

Post by ratww »

config_yml wrote: post #23

I remember when I got started with webdev around 2002, a lot was built on flat files. And so did I, because that’s how my “internet mentor” did it: guestbooks, bulletin boards, mailing lists, shoutboxes, CMSs. All in flat files, except I used php and not Perl like him.

I also did some Perl and that was super common. I also remember most 90s non-web software also using flat files. Even enterprise stuff, even when they had centralized storage in a file server. Sometimes they had databases but those were also accessed directly in the disk, sqlite-style. I remember seeing Clipper, FoxPro and MS Access being used in this manner.

After Perl I graduated to doing web stuff with a Microsoft Access (!) file stored in the disk alongside my .ASP scripts, exactly like one would do with sqlite today. It was quite performant.

I wonder if your "internet mentor" was the same as mine: Matt from Matt's Script Archive @ http://www.scriptarchive.com.

Re: Smaller is better – The rise, fall, and rise of flat file software

#38

Post by 42jd »

tarr11 wrote: post #31
GuB-42 wrote: post #30

Maybe it is just a reflection on the state of filesystems vs databases. There is no fundamental difference between a database and a flat file, it is all bytes on a disk/memory in the end. So it is mostly a question of balancing the roles of the hardware, OS, and application software. For example, if the reason you are using a database is that it does a particularly good job at limiting disk IO, then it may not be nec…

Some databases also have the ability to be instantly portable, like a sqlite file. You can tar up your flat files as well, but that is a separate process and can be time consuming for larger directories. Perhaps there is a use case for a file system backed by portable database like sqlite, such that you can just mount the volume and send it around without pain, but can prefer to use normal command line utils (ls, rm,…

I’ve had this research paper on my reading list for a while (but haven’t gotten to reading the full thing)[1]. Not necessarily just a file system but It lays out an entire operating system backed by a database and OS state interactions are done through SQL.

1. https://vldb.org/pvldb/vol15/p21-skiadopoulos.pdf

Re: Smaller is better – The rise, fall, and rise of flat file software

#39

Post by brnt »

config_yml wrote: post #23

I remember when I got started with webdev around 2002, a lot was built on flat files. And so did I, because that’s how my “internet mentor” did it: guestbooks, bulletin boards, mailing lists, shoutboxes, CMSs. All in flat files, except I used php and not Perl like him.

Ah, I miss those days! Writing a guestbook in PHP was how many got started back then!
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