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MS SQL? I've been a ("full stack") web developer for 18 years now, and I've never seen anyone use MS SQL for a web application. That's immediately a tell that I

by tinco 4y ago

MS SQL? I've been a ("full stack") web developer for 18 years now, and I've never seen anyone use MS SQL for a web application. That's immediately a tell that I'm in a bubble, and obviously you are as well if you think MySQL/MS SQL are even in the top 3 (behind Postgres, MongoDB, Oracle?). Since you mentioned it, I just asked ChatGPT and in a list of 30 unicorn companies based around web applications, half of them were built in Ruby which isn't even in your list. If becoming a successful company is part of the justification for technology choices, you'd need a very strong argument to not pick Ruby. I'm not really sure that's true, but if you want to make strong recommendations I feel they need to be backed by data, and not some hunch on what technology is popular right now. And Ruby has been less popular for over a decade now, and it's still used by half the most successful companies out there. So the data isn't on your side here.

andrewstuart 4y ago
>> I've never seen anyone use MS SQL for a web application Are you working in the corporate world? The data you request is that on my local job board there are > 833 jobs for MS-SQL - that's mainstream. MySQL/MS SQL - I would not use them personally but they are very popular. Industry acceptance and popularity matter when pragmatically choosing a tech stack for a company. Ruby is definitely not in my list - it may be fine if you are a unicorn company with a vast flow of developers who want to get on board the success train, but for the other companies hiring is a nightmare. "Whatever happened to Ruby?" https://www.infoworld.com/article/3687219/whatever-happened-to-ruby.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/3687219/whatever-happened-... Again, my local job board has 148 Ruby jobs versus 1554 Python jobs versus 855 C# jobs. The fact that a technology is used by big companies does not mean it is not in decline. Facebook still uses PHP - a technology clearly in decline. Like it or not, Ruby's best days are behind it - the fact that so any successful companies are built with Ruby is historical information. And besides, its up to you what you think the list is of modern mainstream technologies - doesn't matter what I think is in that list. The point is that choosing something less than mainstream such as Elm or Haskell or whatever is likely to cause problems. And for the record - that same job board returned one job when searched for "Elm", and it was actually an ad for a Ruby job.
__jem 4y ago
SQL Server actually rocks. I was extremely skeptical about it going into a new job having mostly used Postgres, but it’s actually so much better than Postgres in some dimensions it’s kind of crazy. I always assumed proprietary DBs were just a scam, but there’s definitely reasons to choose one, especially in the enterprise space.
- nocman 4y ago
  I would be interested to hear a concrete list of things SQL Server is "so much better than Postgres" in. It's difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions otherwise.
  - Merad 4y ago
    I'm sort of the opposite of GP. Having worked with SQL Server the first 5-6 years I've transitioned to using Postgres more over the last 3-4 years and really prefer it. That said SQL has some nice features, off the top of more head: * It's pivot/unpivot query syntax is a lot nicer than the comparable Postgres extension. * The ability to define a clustered index for a table that's maintained automatically. * The ability to define materialized views that are maintained automatically. * The db engine can automatically use materialized views to accelerate queries matching the view definition. * It has some really cool support around temporal tables. Not just defining them, but using them in queries. Like, there's a pretty simple query syntax that lets you join together multiple temporal tables and say, show me what the data looked like at this point in time, or show me how it changed during this time period. The main problem with SQL Server IMO is that many of the cool features you discover are gated behind a SQL Server Enterprise license, and it's crazy expensive. Upwards of $10k per core per year, IIRC. The last time I looked at RDS instance prices I believe SQL Server Standard was about 4x more expensive than Postgres, and Enterprise about 8x more expensive.
    - justsomehnguy 4y ago
      Editions Open no-level price (US dollar) Licensing model Channel availability Enterprise $15,123 2 core pack Volume licensing, hosting So it's like $7561.5 per core, but as usual you need to license all physical cores in the server[1] if running on the pOSE. Of course MS heavily push for SA and while it's not useful for the most SMBs it has benefits like unlimited virtualization rights. [0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-2022-pricing https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-2022-p... [1] https://download.microsoft.com/download/0/f/4/0f4c1b3c-cbc4-4495-97e4-2050543f49b3/SQL_Server_2022_Licensing_Datasheet.pdf https://download.microsoft.com/download/0/f/4/0f4c1b3c-cbc4-... Edit: as a sysadmin the quite easy to configure default maintenance plans with backups is a godsend. It is still very awkward what you need reinvent the wheel (or use/buy a 3rd party product) to just backup databases on schedule in PG/My SQL.
javcasas 4y ago
I have been a full stack dev for a while as well. Some time ago, I lead a project based on C#/ASP.net/SQL server. The SQL server instance would lock up/use 100% CPU for days every other week, even after restarting and with no load. That, along with many other problems with the tech stack made me say "never again". So yeah, there are web applications based on SQL server out there, despite my efforts to prevent it.
- g8oz 4y ago
  The performance knobs for SQL Server are there but someone has to take the time to turn them.

by tinco 4y ago

andrewstuart 4y ago

>> I've never seen anyone use MS SQL for a web application Are you working in the corporate world? The data you request is that on my local job board there are > 833 jobs for MS-SQL - that's mainstream. MySQL/MS SQL - I would not use them personally but they are very popular. Industry acceptance and popularity matter when pragmatically choosing a tech stack for a company. Ruby is definitely not in my list - it may be fine if you are a unicorn company with a vast flow of developers who want to get on board the success train, but for the other companies hiring is a nightmare. "Whatever happened to Ruby?" https://www.infoworld.com/article/3687219/whatever-happened-to-ruby.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/3687219/whatever-happened-... Again, my local job board has 148 Ruby jobs versus 1554 Python jobs versus 855 C# jobs. The fact that a technology is used by big companies does not mean it is not in decline. Facebook still uses PHP - a technology clearly in decline. Like it or not, Ruby's best days are behind it - the fact that so any successful companies are built with Ruby is historical information. And besides, its up to you what you think the list is of modern mainstream technologies - doesn't matter what I think is in that list. The point is that choosing something less than mainstream such as Elm or Haskell or whatever is likely to cause problems. And for the record - that same job board returned one job when searched for "Elm", and it was actually an ad for a Ruby job.

__jem 4y ago

SQL Server actually rocks. I was extremely skeptical about it going into a new job having mostly used Postgres, but it’s actually so much better than Postgres in some dimensions it’s kind of crazy. I always assumed proprietary DBs were just a scam, but there’s definitely reasons to choose one, especially in the enterprise space.

nocman 4y ago
I would be interested to hear a concrete list of things SQL Server is "so much better than Postgres" in. It's difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions otherwise.
- Merad 4y ago
  I'm sort of the opposite of GP. Having worked with SQL Server the first 5-6 years I've transitioned to using Postgres more over the last 3-4 years and really prefer it. That said SQL has some nice features, off the top of more head: * It's pivot/unpivot query syntax is a lot nicer than the comparable Postgres extension. * The ability to define a clustered index for a table that's maintained automatically. * The ability to define materialized views that are maintained automatically. * The db engine can automatically use materialized views to accelerate queries matching the view definition. * It has some really cool support around temporal tables. Not just defining them, but using them in queries. Like, there's a pretty simple query syntax that lets you join together multiple temporal tables and say, show me what the data looked like at this point in time, or show me how it changed during this time period. The main problem with SQL Server IMO is that many of the cool features you discover are gated behind a SQL Server Enterprise license, and it's crazy expensive. Upwards of $10k per core per year, IIRC. The last time I looked at RDS instance prices I believe SQL Server Standard was about 4x more expensive than Postgres, and Enterprise about 8x more expensive.
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    Editions Open no-level price (US dollar) Licensing model Channel availability Enterprise $15,123 2 core pack Volume licensing, hosting So it's like $7561.5 per core, but as usual you need to license all physical cores in the server[1] if running on the pOSE. Of course MS heavily push for SA and while it's not useful for the most SMBs it has benefits like unlimited virtualization rights. [0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-2022-pricing https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-2022-p... [1] https://download.microsoft.com/download/0/f/4/0f4c1b3c-cbc4-4495-97e4-2050543f49b3/SQL_Server_2022_Licensing_Datasheet.pdf https://download.microsoft.com/download/0/f/4/0f4c1b3c-cbc4-... Edit: as a sysadmin the quite easy to configure default maintenance plans with backups is a godsend. It is still very awkward what you need reinvent the wheel (or use/buy a 3rd party product) to just backup databases on schedule in PG/My SQL.

javcasas 4y ago

I have been a full stack dev for a while as well. Some time ago, I lead a project based on C#/ASP.net/SQL server. The SQL server instance would lock up/use 100% CPU for days every other week, even after restarting and with no load. That, along with many other problems with the tech stack made me say "never again". So yeah, there are web applications based on SQL server out there, despite my efforts to prevent it.

g8oz 4y ago
The performance knobs for SQL Server are there but someone has to take the time to turn them.