4 ms·

some hackers hack simply to find out what's on the other side

reitzensteinm 17y ago
Well... that's fun and all, but surely it's better to use the optimal solution and see how far you can take things? I personally find building meaningful products that my customers love hard enough without handycapping myself for my own amusement!
ntoshev 17y ago
No, it's just another case of RDBMS blinding people for all other possible solutions.
- silentbicycle 17y ago
  Have you ever noticed how when this happens, it's practically always MySQL? (And when people complain about how badly relational databases perform and it turns out they don't know about indexes, transactions, or stored procedures, it's always MySQL...)
  - donw 17y ago
    This. The non-MySQL RDBMS people that I know, know when their RDBMS of choice isn't the right tool for the job. Most of the MySQL people I know, seem to think that you just shove everything into the DB, and let Eris sort it out. Because no other member of the pantheon is crazy enough to even look at that mess.
    - silentbicycle 17y ago
      I suspect a network effect is in place where the vast majority of people whose entire understating of databases came from "PHP + MySQL For Dummies"-caliber books, blog posts, etc. use MySQL by default. A critical mass of them end up perpetuating bad advice, griping about how since MySQL hasn't worked well for them, all RDBMSs are junk, etc. Then, people looking for advice starting with databases read their tutorials. To some degree, MySQL probably brought this upon themselves[1], but now there's a feedback loop in place[2][3][4]. [1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/764fp/mysql_vs_postgresql/c05sayb [2]: http://sqlanywhere.blogspot.com/2008/03/unpublished-mysql-faq.html [3]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=561277 [4]: http://ask.metafilter.com/117908/Theres-got-to-be-a-faster-way-to-update There seems to be a similar effect between Linux and BSD. I'm not going to claim that BSD is objectively superior in every regard, but on average, the BSD community seems to be quite a bit better informed than the Linux community. It may just be because Linux is so much more visible. People using BSD, Postgres, etc. probably already knew enough to evaluate their options, while the path of least resistance stays overrun with clueless newbies.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - ntoshev 17y ago
    No. And it doesn't have anything to do with any deficiency MySQL may have - RDBMS is not an OK replacement for a log file.
    - silentbicycle 17y ago
      Of course, but that's orthogonal to my point.
  - Legion 17y ago
    It's not that hard to understand. MySQL is a popular RDBMS starting point. Therefore, almost by definition, if you run into someone using a RDBMS but not really knowing WTF they are doing, they're quite often using MySQL. If it wasn't MySQL, the same people would flock to, and poorly use, some other tool.
    - silentbicycle 17y ago
      > If it wasn't MySQL, the same people would flock to, and poorly use, some other tool. That's what I said, deeper in the thread. I don't think it's because MySQL is terrible, but almost all the people who don't really know databases start with MySQL by default, so the community surrounding it consistently has more people who are grossly misinformed than (for example) Postgres's.
silentbicycle 17y ago
"How long will people continue believing in the myth of the 15-year-old hacker genius while simultaneously decrying the unreliability of software before the cognitive dissonance finally cracks?" - Dave Herman (http://calculist.blogspot.com/2005/12/12-weeks-with-geeks.html http://calculist.blogspot.com/2005/12/12-weeks-with-geeks.ht...)

Well... that's fun and all, but surely it's better to use the optimal solution and see how far you can take things? I personally find building meaningful products that my customers love hard enough without handycapping myself for my own amusement!

ntoshev 17y ago

No, it's just another case of RDBMS blinding people for all other possible solutions.

silentbicycle 17y ago
Have you ever noticed how when this happens, it's practically always MySQL? (And when people complain about how badly relational databases perform and it turns out they don't know about indexes, transactions, or stored procedures, it's always MySQL...)
- donw 17y ago
  This. The non-MySQL RDBMS people that I know, know when their RDBMS of choice isn't the right tool for the job. Most of the MySQL people I know, seem to think that you just shove everything into the DB, and let Eris sort it out. Because no other member of the pantheon is crazy enough to even look at that mess.
  - silentbicycle 17y ago
    I suspect a network effect is in place where the vast majority of people whose entire understating of databases came from "PHP + MySQL For Dummies"-caliber books, blog posts, etc. use MySQL by default. A critical mass of them end up perpetuating bad advice, griping about how since MySQL hasn't worked well for them, all RDBMSs are junk, etc. Then, people looking for advice starting with databases read their tutorials. To some degree, MySQL probably brought this upon themselves[1], but now there's a feedback loop in place[2][3][4]. [1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/764fp/mysql_vs_postgresql/c05sayb [2]: http://sqlanywhere.blogspot.com/2008/03/unpublished-mysql-faq.html [3]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=561277 [4]: http://ask.metafilter.com/117908/Theres-got-to-be-a-faster-way-to-update There seems to be a similar effect between Linux and BSD. I'm not going to claim that BSD is objectively superior in every regard, but on average, the BSD community seems to be quite a bit better informed than the Linux community. It may just be because Linux is so much more visible. People using BSD, Postgres, etc. probably already knew enough to evaluate their options, while the path of least resistance stays overrun with clueless newbies.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- ntoshev 17y ago
  No. And it doesn't have anything to do with any deficiency MySQL may have - RDBMS is not an OK replacement for a log file.
  - silentbicycle 17y ago
    Of course, but that's orthogonal to my point.
- Legion 17y ago
  It's not that hard to understand. MySQL is a popular RDBMS starting point. Therefore, almost by definition, if you run into someone using a RDBMS but not really knowing WTF they are doing, they're quite often using MySQL. If it wasn't MySQL, the same people would flock to, and poorly use, some other tool.
  - silentbicycle 17y ago
    > If it wasn't MySQL, the same people would flock to, and poorly use, some other tool. That's what I said, deeper in the thread. I don't think it's because MySQL is terrible, but almost all the people who don't really know databases start with MySQL by default, so the community surrounding it consistently has more people who are grossly misinformed than (for example) Postgres's.

silentbicycle 17y ago

"How long will people continue believing in the myth of the 15-year-old hacker genius while simultaneously decrying the unreliability of software before the cognitive dissonance finally cracks?" - Dave Herman (http://calculist.blogspot.com/2005/12/12-weeks-with-geeks.html http://calculist.blogspot.com/2005/12/12-weeks-with-geeks.ht...)