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What's nonsensical about it? A partition is just a logical split of your data. You can do horizontal partitioning (aka "horizontal sharding"), like splitting th

What's nonsensical about it? A partition is just a logical split of your data. You can do horizontal partitioning (aka "horizontal sharding"), like splitting the same table to different databases by key. Or you can do vertical partitioning, where you put different tables in different databases.

jeffdavis 7y ago
I always thought vertical partitioning meant to split by columns (that is, have fewer columns per table, and you need to join to get the original back).
- JohnBooty 7y ago
  You're correct! https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18302773/what-are-horizontal-and-vertical-partitions-in-database-and-what-is-the-differen https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18302773/what-are-horizo... https://www.datanumen.com/blogs/in-depth-understand-of-vertical-partitioning-in-sql-server/ https://www.datanumen.com/blogs/in-depth-understand-of-verti...
JohnBooty 7y ago
For one thing, there's already a term for what they're doing. It's called sharding. Why make shards and decide to call them partitions, when "partitions" means something else in this context and there is already a name (shards) for what's being done?
- Ozzie_osman 7y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(database) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(database) https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20771435/database-sharding-vs-partitioning https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20771435/database-shardi...
  - JohnBooty 7y ago
    They're talking about MySQL specifically, not databases in the abstract. Sure, yeah, you can call anything "paritioning" in a general sense when it comes to data storage, including building a physical wall between your database servers, or adding dividers to your shoebox full of recipe cards. Here's a more relevant link. https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/partitioning.html https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/partitioning.html It's like if you had a MySQL table that contained some sort of metadata that helped you find other data more quickly. Would you call that table an "index?" I mean, yeah, sure, it's an index (in the abstract sense of the word) but that would be awfully confusing in in the context of a MySQL database since it already has a pretty specific meaning there.

jeffdavis 7y ago

I always thought vertical partitioning meant to split by columns (that is, have fewer columns per table, and you need to join to get the original back).

JohnBooty 7y ago
You're correct! https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18302773/what-are-horizontal-and-vertical-partitions-in-database-and-what-is-the-differen https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18302773/what-are-horizo... https://www.datanumen.com/blogs/in-depth-understand-of-vertical-partitioning-in-sql-server/ https://www.datanumen.com/blogs/in-depth-understand-of-verti...

JohnBooty 7y ago

For one thing, there's already a term for what they're doing. It's called sharding. Why make shards and decide to call them partitions, when "partitions" means something else in this context and there is already a name (shards) for what's being done?

Ozzie_osman 7y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(database) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(database) https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20771435/database-sharding-vs-partitioning https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20771435/database-shardi...
- JohnBooty 7y ago
  They're talking about MySQL specifically, not databases in the abstract. Sure, yeah, you can call anything "paritioning" in a general sense when it comes to data storage, including building a physical wall between your database servers, or adding dividers to your shoebox full of recipe cards. Here's a more relevant link. https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/partitioning.html https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/partitioning.html It's like if you had a MySQL table that contained some sort of metadata that helped you find other data more quickly. Would you call that table an "index?" I mean, yeah, sure, it's an index (in the abstract sense of the word) but that would be awfully confusing in in the context of a MySQL database since it already has a pretty specific meaning there.