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Because Redis is... problematic? 1. Redis has a lot of functionality that a simple cache client doesn't need. 2. Redis's connection model can lead to complica
by KirinDave 7y ago
Because Redis is... problematic?
1. Redis has a lot of functionality that a simple cache client doesn't need.
2. Redis's connection model can lead to complications.
3. Redis's to-disk checkpointing in practice uses a lot of memory.
4. Redis's poorly chosen default settings have cost the industry an uncounted but large sum of money.
5. Redis is written in C. That's a bad idea for a networked application.
6. Redis's creator is a person who doesn't deserve our support. He's constantly combative with experts who have give him good advice about how to improve Redis because he has a vision of "simplicity" which translates to "what I already understand."
Redis is a decent choice if you need all of its features. It's got a wide spectrum. But, if you don't need ALL of them, then pick a simpler and better designed system.
- sagichmal 7y ago> Redis's creator is a person who doesn't deserve our support. There are valid criticisms of Redis but this is shitty and vindictive. You should be ashamed.
- KirinDave 7y agoI'm neither vindictive nor ashamed that I am pointing out Antirez argued passionately and publicly for the right to say "master and slave is a term of art and I will keep using it." I'm also not ashamed of pointing out that Redis as a project is famous for hand waving away redis problems.
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- rat9988 7y agoIf it's the only think you criticize about him, then I guess he is worth of support. There is nothing wrong with this terminology unless you can prove otherwise.
- KirinDave 7y agoWeird, I didn't mention it on the first post. I had 6 specific criticisms, 5 of which were technical. If anything, this is an example of how the Redis community has actors that pop up trying to distract from direct criticism. I'm being downvoted and flagged despite my post being substantive, on topic, and in direct response to a question. There are valid reasons not to use Redis.
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- rat9988 7y agoI'm not dismissing the other points, I'm just discussing this one. I don't even use redis.
- tptacek 7y agoI don't love the way the previous comment is written, but it's substantive. This is just drama; it distills the worst possible reading from the parent comment and tries to fix that meaning for the rest of the thread, which is exactly the opposite of what the guidelines ask you to do. Further: the Redis take on display in that comment is pretty mainstream – very much including the statement about Sanfilippo's obstinacy – among systems developers. Even if you're an advocate for Redis, it's good to at least see the brief its detractors bring against it.
- sagichmal 7y agoI agree that Sanfilippo can be obstinate. "Redis' creator doesn't deserve our support" is a shitty and vindictive conclusion to come to from that obstinance. If that's ^^ unsubstantive drama to you, and the thing it's responding to isn't, calibrate your sensors because they're off.
- KirinDave 7y agoI don't really understand why this is so traumatic to say. There are lots of people doing amazing things. Maybe we can look at projects run by people who don't disregard good technical advice for years out of what they themselves have called pride. I knew my post would be controversial, but I certainly wasn't expecting that the main complaint leveled is that I'm supposed to ignore he and his community's prior transgressions because remembering them is "vindictive."
- tptacek 7y agoYou disagree with it. That's fine. But people are allowed to say that things are or aren't worthy of support. Ironically, what they shouldn't do is call them "shitty and vindictive", which that comment didn't do.
- antirez 7y agoActually the comment is not substantive. Not telling what is the configuration that creates problems, not telling what's wrong about the Redis connection handling, not comparing Redis fork based persistence with the alternative in memory systems have, and so forth, is a exactly the hand waving the OP accuses of doing. Very short not detailed criticisms of systems are actually FUD because in complex systems the devil is in the details.
- taywrobel 7y ago> Redis is written in C. That's a bad idea for a networked application. That’s a heafty claim. It is certainly more complicated to write a network complication in C vs a higher level language like Go, but by no means a bad idea in terms of outcome. A bigger issue may be the QPS that a cache generates, as you tend to check large quantities of values against it. So the network round trip to Redis isn’t ideal, and you may get into a situation where it’s single threaded nature becomes a bottleneck if your values are large (tho generally Redis is memory or network bounded, not CPU).
- KirinDave 7y ago> That’s a heafty claim. It is certainly more complicated to write a network complication in C vs a higher level language like Go, but by no means a bad idea in terms of outcome. It is dangerous to write network connected applications in C. This is not a hefty claim, it's well understood in the industry and most major tech firms avoid writing new software this way. > A bigger issue may be the QPS that a cache generates, as you tend to check large quantities of values against it. So the network round trip to Redis isn’t ideal, and you may get into a situation where it’s single threaded nature becomes a bottleneck if your values are large (tho generally Redis is memory or network bounded, not CPU). For most modern deployment models of Redis, I do not think that this is correct. Redis tends to be run locally with API responders, and as such the RTT will be lost in the noise that most web frameworks introduce. Surely if there is a big RTT that is a problem, but that's not a Redis-specific problem (although the consistent tcp connections with potentially sparse usage it prefers may add knock on effects in this condition).
- taywrobel 7y agoSo Memcached, Redis, and Postgres are all dangerous to use because they are written in C? Does your blanket statement apply to C++ and other C derivatives as well? If so, we lose MySQL, Oracle SQL, MS SQL. Basically every database written more than a decade ago. From what I can tell general consensus seems to be that all of those systems are pretty stable and not dangerous because of their language choice.
- antirez 7y agoActually the main thing about simplicity is having an ego small enough that you don't need to show, in your code / design, everything you are capable of understanding, if less is already enough. The fact I understand strong consistency does not mean this is a good design choice for Redis. Actually who followed certain advices provided by experts, now closed the doors of their business in the database area. You can't be hostage of your users.
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