4 ms·

A lot of businesses also run on MS Access. I think redis is in the great tradition of amateurism, and is about as good as you can get under that approach. It's

A lot of businesses also run on MS Access. I think redis is in the great tradition of amateurism, and is about as good as you can get under that approach. It's a lot better than a number of other systems, and it's also somewhat limited.

zaroth 10y ago
Redis is no Access, but at least it goes to show that heavily-funded enterprise software is often worse, not better. To me this smacks of academic eliteism. At the scale and density it is used, Redis is by definition not amateurish. Amateur means either unpaid or inept. Describing Redis as inept can only mean you've never used it and are unable to appreciate the incredible diversity of problems for which Redis provides truly excellent reliability, usability, and performance all at once. Antirez succeeded in providing a great measure of all 3 of those traits all at once, and in a code base which is surprisingly easy to read and maintain. To me Redis is in fact a modern marvel. Proof of what a 10x engineer can achieve when left alone to get shit done.
- jonstewart 10y ago
  I definitely don't mean to suggest that antirez is inept. While redis is technically now a commercial/professional endeavor, I don't think that the commercial side of it (which is not a technical comparison at all) compares to some of the other NoSQL vendors, and that means it's hard to hire experts. Hence, redis is a great amateur NoSQL system. And to be clear, it is way better than Access.
  - zaroth 10y ago
    I look at it a bit differently. Would Redis be better today if antirez had raised $10m and hired 50 engineers and then gone out to maximize profit? Certainly that option existed. Personally I doubt the end product really would be that much better, and it would be a tragedy to lose such a great piece of free and open source software.
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      >> (which is not a technical comparison at all)
      - zaroth 10y ago
        Yes, I saw that. Which is why I responded to discuss the economic aspect -- like other NoSQL startups, should Redis have raised a war-chest and gone out an hired all those experts? I just have a gut feeling that VC funds would endanger the Redis we know and love more than it could actually help it.
matthewmacleod 10y ago
Redis is brilliant. It's preposterous to think that systems have to be complex or featureful in order to be "professional".
- tedunangst 10y ago
  Perhaps the problem is the overspecification of words like "amateur" and "professional" to mean things they don't.

zaroth 10y ago

Redis is no Access, but at least it goes to show that heavily-funded enterprise software is often worse, not better. To me this smacks of academic eliteism. At the scale and density it is used, Redis is by definition not amateurish. Amateur means either unpaid or inept. Describing Redis as inept can only mean you've never used it and are unable to appreciate the incredible diversity of problems for which Redis provides truly excellent reliability, usability, and performance all at once. Antirez succeeded in providing a great measure of all 3 of those traits all at once, and in a code base which is surprisingly easy to read and maintain. To me Redis is in fact a modern marvel. Proof of what a 10x engineer can achieve when left alone to get shit done.

jonstewart 10y ago
I definitely don't mean to suggest that antirez is inept. While redis is technically now a commercial/professional endeavor, I don't think that the commercial side of it (which is not a technical comparison at all) compares to some of the other NoSQL vendors, and that means it's hard to hire experts. Hence, redis is a great amateur NoSQL system. And to be clear, it is way better than Access.
- zaroth 10y ago
  I look at it a bit differently. Would Redis be better today if antirez had raised $10m and hired 50 engineers and then gone out to maximize profit? Certainly that option existed. Personally I doubt the end product really would be that much better, and it would be a tragedy to lose such a great piece of free and open source software.
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    >> (which is not a technical comparison at all)
    - zaroth 10y ago
      Yes, I saw that. Which is why I responded to discuss the economic aspect -- like other NoSQL startups, should Redis have raised a war-chest and gone out an hired all those experts? I just have a gut feeling that VC funds would endanger the Redis we know and love more than it could actually help it.

matthewmacleod 10y ago

Redis is brilliant. It's preposterous to think that systems have to be complex or featureful in order to be "professional".

tedunangst 10y ago
Perhaps the problem is the overspecification of words like "amateur" and "professional" to mean things they don't.