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I have real problems with TreeNotation advertising itself as "a software-less database system". It's basically abusing your filesystem to store a tree data stru

by krapht 7y ago

I have real problems with TreeNotation advertising itself as "a software-less database system". It's basically abusing your filesystem to store a tree data structure and using git to handle concurrent updates. That's great, except for the part where they ask "does it scale"; and the answer is yes, but should be no. A database is so much more than just a schema and validator, but this is being advertised as a database replacement. And, I want to stress, that this doesn't mean I don't think it isn't useful. I bet there are lots of times where you want to enforce some sort of structure on a bunch of folders with files in them. That's not a database though.

breck 7y ago
Thanks for the feedback! I did not expect that confusion. I just made an update (and will push shortly) to be more explicit that it scales for collaborative knowledge bases. But I'm not talking about something like real time transactional DBs, etc. I have not used TreeBase for anything other than collaborative knowledge bases. Haven't even thought much beyond that. Thanks for letting me know that wasn't clear.
- krapht 7y ago
  There's nothing special about collaborative knowledge bases that make them immune from scaling problems. You can't use TreeNotation to run Wikipedia. Fundamentally it isn't a database, period. It's a schema for files in a file system.
  - breck 7y ago
    > Fundamentally it isn't a database, period. It's a schema for files in a file system. This is false. It is both. A database is merely an application that provides an interface to structured data on disk. I know a thing or two about databases, having contributed to a few of the larger open source ones. There's a lot more to TreeBase than is on the website right now. As the website says "We have been using TreeBase for over 2 years in systems with millions of rows and dozens of collaborators." For all you know, you may have actually used a website that is powered by TreeBase (well, a TreeBase application written in a different host language, but the file system semantics are the same).
    - rufugee 7y ago
      Not sure why you're getting negativity. Though I haven't gone back and reviewed your past comments, I don't see any harm in mentioning it here... It seems somewhat on topic and looks interesting for certain use cases.

by krapht 7y ago

breck 7y ago

Thanks for the feedback! I did not expect that confusion. I just made an update (and will push shortly) to be more explicit that it scales for collaborative knowledge bases. But I'm not talking about something like real time transactional DBs, etc. I have not used TreeBase for anything other than collaborative knowledge bases. Haven't even thought much beyond that. Thanks for letting me know that wasn't clear.

krapht 7y ago
There's nothing special about collaborative knowledge bases that make them immune from scaling problems. You can't use TreeNotation to run Wikipedia. Fundamentally it isn't a database, period. It's a schema for files in a file system.
- breck 7y ago
  > Fundamentally it isn't a database, period. It's a schema for files in a file system. This is false. It is both. A database is merely an application that provides an interface to structured data on disk. I know a thing or two about databases, having contributed to a few of the larger open source ones. There's a lot more to TreeBase than is on the website right now. As the website says "We have been using TreeBase for over 2 years in systems with millions of rows and dozens of collaborators." For all you know, you may have actually used a website that is powered by TreeBase (well, a TreeBase application written in a different host language, but the file system semantics are the same).
  - rufugee 7y ago
    Not sure why you're getting negativity. Though I haven't gone back and reviewed your past comments, I don't see any harm in mentioning it here... It seems somewhat on topic and looks interesting for certain use cases.