5 ms·

Great article, but he should have started with the "it's proprietary" bit. Life is too short to run proprietary software.

hjek 8y ago
> Life is too short to run proprietary software. Agreed, but Datomic uses Datalog as query language: > In practice, a Datomic Database Value is not implemented as a basic list; it's a sophisticated data structures comprising multiple indexes, which allows for expressive and fast queries using Datalog, a query language for relational data. Hence the article should still be relevant to free Datalog implementations, such as the Racket Datalog package[0]. [0]: https://docs.racket-lang.org/datalog/index.html https://docs.racket-lang.org/datalog/index.html
- vbuwivbiu 8y ago
  and after a few days of writing datalog queries you'll wonder why you ever put up with SQL
  - javajosh 8y ago
    "After a few days of X you'll wonder why you ever put up with Y". If you added all the (X,Y) pairs where this has been said, I wonder how many days, nay, lifetimes you'd need to prove their points for them?
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      More hilariously, how many pairs of (x,y) would have their opposite of (y,x) in the same set? Also, having used datalog, I couldn’t disagree more. SQL is fine.
Scarbutt 8y ago
Many succeed with proprietary software while others worry and don't ship.
- hjek 8y ago
  Studies have shown that most people consider arguments based solely on weasel words completely meaningless.
- chongli 8y ago
  Proprietary software is a cousin to technical debt. You're trading expedience for future risk. You simply never know when the copyright holder will fold up shop and leave you in the lurch. Edit: If you think this is just an abstract risk, remember that Google shuts down popular and incredibly useful products so often it's become a meme around here.
  - manigandham 8y ago
    Every decision is a trade-off. Proprietary software with support from a vendor can greatly speed up your product viability and market profitability. For most companies, and especially startups, that is far more important than the very unlikely risk that a vendor completely disappears overnight, and the even more unlikely risk that their software also stops working completely before you can migrate to something else.
    - chongli 8y ago
      The vendor disappearing overnight is only one of many risks from using proprietary software. Others include the vendor discontinuing the product, taking the product in a radically different direction, the company being acquired, or simply changing the licensing model (see Adobe Creative Cloud) to dramatically increase the costs of using the software. Look, right now I am working for a company that is in the midst of attempting to transition out of a very old source code and release management system and they're having a hell of a time doing it. That system happens to be proprietary and the support plus licensing fees are astronomical while the actual tech support is abysmal. Yes, the risk may seem like an easy tradeoff when you're starting out and you need to ship and you don't have any market share to worry about. It's a whole different story when you're dealing with a very clunky, yet very profitable legacy system that you're not allowed to fix because it's proprietary and yet your business depends on it.
manigandham 8y ago
I'm not sure what proprietary software has to do with limited time, other than helping you move faster in most cases.
aidenn0 8y ago
As long as it's not profitable to make money solely off of consulting for free software, but is profitable to sell proprietary software, proprietary software will be inevitable (the company that makes Datomic previously had that business model before deciding to release Datomic as proprietary software).
- zcam 8y ago
  Both models are/can be profitable, it's down to a personal (strategic) choice from the authors ultimately. There are many successful stories of proprietary dbs and also a number open sources ones in terms of profitability, ex: Elastic, Datastax, Confluent, Citus etc etc... Personally I wished it was open-source, it looks quite capable but there is too much risk involved for me to be confortable using it, not to mention it's quite pricey. 1$/day is for dev setups, prod cloud setups start around 4-5k/year last time I read about it, it might be fine for a single deploy backing your service, not when that's a cost you have to add to every client. Another thing is that it is very specific to some uses and has some limitations (subjectively) that will often require to pair it with other solutions to be actually usable for some things (ex: strings are limited to 4096 characters, no bytes type). All in all it makes sense given what you should use it for (and not use it for), but that's not your usual db product and sometimes I have the feeling that it's advertised as a potential drop-in replacement for <insert favorite relational db> when it's quite often not by itself (arguably, apples vs oranges). There are also a number interesting of projects that got inspired by it in one way or another, but nothing directly comparable: * datahike (and the upcoming datopia.io) * datascript That said datalog is a pleasure to use and datomic looks fantastic it's just not for everybody.
  - jdminhbg 8y ago
    > 1$/day is for dev setups This is just for the AWS-hosted cloud version; you can run the dev version locally for free.
fnordsensei 8y ago
Setting aside idealism for a moment, I find it difficult to criticize those who do choose to make their software proprietary. In some cases, it's the only way for the software to exist.
- Barrin92 8y ago
  I don't even understand the 'idealistic' part. Without proprietary software, software as a distinguishing feature falls away, and scale and hardware seem to become all that matters, and nobody can compete with the big players on cash. It's no wonder large companies have become fans of open source with the advent of cloud computing. People are throwing software at their magical money making machines entirely for free.
jwr 8y ago
I do not intend to use Datomic (I currently use RethinkDB and I am considering FoundationDB in the future), and yet I found the article interesting and I think I can learn a lot from it (get a good feeling for a number of approaches to a hard problem).
mhd 8y ago
Life is also usually too short to implement event sourcing. Strangely enough I see this beloved YAGNI pattern enjoying some sort of renaissance lately.
- bantunes 8y ago
  One of the big drawbacks to it was storage (for all those events), and it's dirt cheap these days.

hjek 8y ago

> Life is too short to run proprietary software. Agreed, but Datomic uses Datalog as query language: > In practice, a Datomic Database Value is not implemented as a basic list; it's a sophisticated data structures comprising multiple indexes, which allows for expressive and fast queries using Datalog, a query language for relational data. Hence the article should still be relevant to free Datalog implementations, such as the Racket Datalog package[0]. [0]: https://docs.racket-lang.org/datalog/index.html https://docs.racket-lang.org/datalog/index.html

vbuwivbiu 8y ago
and after a few days of writing datalog queries you'll wonder why you ever put up with SQL
- javajosh 8y ago
  "After a few days of X you'll wonder why you ever put up with Y". If you added all the (X,Y) pairs where this has been said, I wonder how many days, nay, lifetimes you'd need to prove their points for them?
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    More hilariously, how many pairs of (x,y) would have their opposite of (y,x) in the same set? Also, having used datalog, I couldn’t disagree more. SQL is fine.

Scarbutt 8y ago

Many succeed with proprietary software while others worry and don't ship.

hjek 8y ago
Studies have shown that most people consider arguments based solely on weasel words completely meaningless.
chongli 8y ago
Proprietary software is a cousin to technical debt. You're trading expedience for future risk. You simply never know when the copyright holder will fold up shop and leave you in the lurch. Edit: If you think this is just an abstract risk, remember that Google shuts down popular and incredibly useful products so often it's become a meme around here.
- manigandham 8y ago
  Every decision is a trade-off. Proprietary software with support from a vendor can greatly speed up your product viability and market profitability. For most companies, and especially startups, that is far more important than the very unlikely risk that a vendor completely disappears overnight, and the even more unlikely risk that their software also stops working completely before you can migrate to something else.
  - chongli 8y ago
    The vendor disappearing overnight is only one of many risks from using proprietary software. Others include the vendor discontinuing the product, taking the product in a radically different direction, the company being acquired, or simply changing the licensing model (see Adobe Creative Cloud) to dramatically increase the costs of using the software. Look, right now I am working for a company that is in the midst of attempting to transition out of a very old source code and release management system and they're having a hell of a time doing it. That system happens to be proprietary and the support plus licensing fees are astronomical while the actual tech support is abysmal. Yes, the risk may seem like an easy tradeoff when you're starting out and you need to ship and you don't have any market share to worry about. It's a whole different story when you're dealing with a very clunky, yet very profitable legacy system that you're not allowed to fix because it's proprietary and yet your business depends on it.

manigandham 8y ago

I'm not sure what proprietary software has to do with limited time, other than helping you move faster in most cases.

aidenn0 8y ago

As long as it's not profitable to make money solely off of consulting for free software, but is profitable to sell proprietary software, proprietary software will be inevitable (the company that makes Datomic previously had that business model before deciding to release Datomic as proprietary software).

zcam 8y ago
Both models are/can be profitable, it's down to a personal (strategic) choice from the authors ultimately. There are many successful stories of proprietary dbs and also a number open sources ones in terms of profitability, ex: Elastic, Datastax, Confluent, Citus etc etc... Personally I wished it was open-source, it looks quite capable but there is too much risk involved for me to be confortable using it, not to mention it's quite pricey. 1$/day is for dev setups, prod cloud setups start around 4-5k/year last time I read about it, it might be fine for a single deploy backing your service, not when that's a cost you have to add to every client. Another thing is that it is very specific to some uses and has some limitations (subjectively) that will often require to pair it with other solutions to be actually usable for some things (ex: strings are limited to 4096 characters, no bytes type). All in all it makes sense given what you should use it for (and not use it for), but that's not your usual db product and sometimes I have the feeling that it's advertised as a potential drop-in replacement for <insert favorite relational db> when it's quite often not by itself (arguably, apples vs oranges). There are also a number interesting of projects that got inspired by it in one way or another, but nothing directly comparable: * datahike (and the upcoming datopia.io) * datascript That said datalog is a pleasure to use and datomic looks fantastic it's just not for everybody.
- jdminhbg 8y ago
  > 1$/day is for dev setups This is just for the AWS-hosted cloud version; you can run the dev version locally for free.

fnordsensei 8y ago

Setting aside idealism for a moment, I find it difficult to criticize those who do choose to make their software proprietary. In some cases, it's the only way for the software to exist.

Barrin92 8y ago
I don't even understand the 'idealistic' part. Without proprietary software, software as a distinguishing feature falls away, and scale and hardware seem to become all that matters, and nobody can compete with the big players on cash. It's no wonder large companies have become fans of open source with the advent of cloud computing. People are throwing software at their magical money making machines entirely for free.

jwr 8y ago

I do not intend to use Datomic (I currently use RethinkDB and I am considering FoundationDB in the future), and yet I found the article interesting and I think I can learn a lot from it (get a good feeling for a number of approaches to a hard problem).

mhd 8y ago

Life is also usually too short to implement event sourcing. Strangely enough I see this beloved YAGNI pattern enjoying some sort of renaissance lately.

bantunes 8y ago
One of the big drawbacks to it was storage (for all those events), and it's dirt cheap these days.