is Datomic Cloud used by Nubank?
Datomic is Free
51–60 of 436 posts
Re: Datomic is Free
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
They say it's under the Apache 2 licence, so it is open source. EDIT: I was wrong. They actually released binaries under the Apache licence, not the source code. Which is, mildly said, deceptive. I don't even have an idea what that actually means.
They say the binaries are being made under Apache 2. They don't say anything about the source code being published. That's why (to me) this is so interesting. I've never seen binaries released without source code before.
What is even the point of releasing binaries under Apache 2? When I patch the binaries, do I need to release a hexdiff too to fulfill my Apache obligations? Very weird.
Re: Datomic is Free
#53Datomic's is perfect for probably 90% of small-ish backoffice systems that never has to be web scale (i.e. most of what I do at work). Writing in a single thread removes a whole host of problems in understanding (and implementing) how data changes over time. (And a busy MVCC sql db spends 75% of its time doing coordination, not actual writes, so a single thread applying a queue of transactions in sequence can be fast…
> Someone needs to have the working set of your database in memory, why shouldn't it be your app server and business logic?
This one confused me. The obvious reason why you don't want the whole working set of your database in the app server's memory is because you have lots of app servers, whereas you only have one database[1]. This suggests that you put the working set of the database in the database, so that you still only need the one copy, not in the app servers where you'd need N copies of it.
The rest of your post makes sense to me but the thing about keeping the database's working set in your app server's memory does not. That's something we specifically work to avoid.
[1] Still talking about "non-webscale" office usage here, that's the world I live in as well. One big central database server, lots of apps and app servers strewn about.
Re: Datomic is Free
#54What is Datomic, you ask? It's a database written in Clojure. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=datomic Datomic is an operational database management system - designed for transactional, domain-specific data. It is not designed to be a data warehouse, nor a high-churn high-throughput system (such as a time-series database or log store). It is a good fit for systems that store valuable information of record, require developer…
For 90% of the web devs that just spin up Postgres/MySQL, why would you use Datomic over that?
Re: Datomic is Free
#55Datomic's is perfect for probably 90% of small-ish backoffice systems that never has to be web scale (i.e. most of what I do at work). Writing in a single thread removes a whole host of problems in understanding (and implementing) how data changes over time. (And a busy MVCC sql db spends 75% of its time doing coordination, not actual writes, so a single thread applying a queue of transactions in sequence can be fast…
> Someone needs to have the working set of your database in memory, why shouldn't it be your app server and business logic? This one confused me. The obvious reason why you don't want the whole working set of your database in the app server's memory is because you have lots of app servers, whereas you only have one database[1]. This suggests that you put the working set of the database in the database , so that you s…
I think the point is that treating your database as an arms-length, RPC component that's independent from your "application" isn't necessarily the only pattern.
Re: Datomic is Free
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
They licensed the binary under Apache. It's a publicity stunt.
Making your product available for free isn't a publicity stunt, it's a huge step for a business. And, in practice, it's not that much different for the average user if only the binaries are Apache licensed. When was the last time you needed to open up the Postgres source code and modify something?
If it wasn't a publicity stunt, it certainly had the effects of one: I've never heard of Datomic before and here they are at the top of hackernews!
> And, in practice, it's not that much different for the average user if only the binaries are Apache licensed. When was the last time you needed to open up the Postgres source code and modify something?
Sure, if you're playing a game it probably doesn't make a difference. If I'm building my IT infrastructure on a product, tt makes a huge difference if I get a an open-source-licensed "binary" or access the to source:
- the package they distribute contains no less than 960 different jars. Most of those are the standard apache-project-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink-style dependencies. Say I'd like to update log4j because it contains a catastropic vulnerability that datomic decide not to fix. (not that that sort of thing ever happens)
- or say Datomic decides to abandon the product altogether or goes out of business
- or say I'm not happy with their quality of service contract around their DB they support and would like to work with a different company
Re: Datomic is Free
#57Where's the source? Why does it say "Pricing" on the website if it's free? This isn't free, it's just an attempt at free publicity.
Re: Datomic is Free
#58The price is certainly right, but has anyone used this in production? What was your experience like?
https://sayartii.com/ is using Datomic stored on postgres that I have set up on Linode. That was all done back in 2020 and haven't needed to touch it. Site now gets ~180M monthly reqs and I store an enormous amount of analytic data on Datomic (was supposed to be temporary) so users can see impressions/clicks per day for each advertisement. I'm surprised it's still working.
Development experience is extremely nice using clojure. I've used it for two other projects and has been very reliable. My latest project didn't really need any of its features compared to a traditional rdbms but I opted for it anyways so I don't have to write sql.
Re: Datomic is Free
#59Re: Datomic is Free
#60Free as in beer. Not free as in speech. > Is it Open Source? Datomic binaries are provided under the Apache 2 license which grants all the same rights to a work delivered in object form. Datomic will continue to be developed at Nubank, where it is a critical piece of our infrastructure.
I find that answer confusing. I don't think I've ever seen binaries being licensed under Apache 2 without the relevant source code before.
It gives the licensee the ability to distribute the binary, use or include it in their products in the same way as an open-source product. It just merely prevents modification without decompiling (which i assume is not easy given it's clojure, not to mention obfuscation?). And presumably it makes it less likely someone would just produce a competing product if they should choose to re-monetize it?