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For context, Raph Koster is not only the person who designed Ultima Online, but generally considered one of the top theoricians in game design. This isnt some g

For context, Raph Koster is not only the person who designed Ultima Online, but generally considered one of the top theoricians in game design. This isnt some guy who has a small blog and came up with a neat explanation for how some word came about in the early days of the web. Its the guy who did it.

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tgtweak 2y ago
I find it incredibly hard to believe that ultima online was the first application of database sharding, but it may very well be the source of the name. "key-based partitioning" doesn't have the same ring to it, but has existed since the early 90's and possibly late 80's.
- strken 2y ago
  The article contains the literal quote "It means database partitioning — of worlds." I don't think it is claiming that UO invented partitioning.
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- prepend 2y ago
  The technique has existed forever. I think UO called is sharding and the name stuck from them.
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- nilsherzig 2y ago
  I can't seem to find it right now, but I read an article, shared in the "awesome-scalability" GitHub repo, which referenced a 1978 paper, written by a couple of IBM researchers, about sharding and a lot of seemingly modern database things.
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- gregw2 2y ago
  Agreed. I have worked at a Fortune 100 firm where its business ran (still runs) off of an ERP sharded into 100 instances, each representing one key facility since the mid-90s. It took extra work in the early days to centralize analytics and manage deployments and data, but it has been very resilient (low blast radius in today's terminology) and natural for low risk deployments, rolling out of upgrades to one site, then the rest in batches.
- nemo44x 2y ago
  Key-based partitioning has existed since card catalogs at libraries and I’m sure there’s examples from before then.
runevault 2y ago
Raph's practical creativity talk is still one of my favorite I've watched from GDC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVTxGpEO30&pp=ygUPcmFwaCBrb3N0ZXIgZ2Rj https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVTxGpEO30&pp=ygUPcmFwaCBrb...
pchristensen 2y ago
I'll put in a plug for his book Theory of Fun for Game Design (https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1449363210 https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/144...). It's a great read that's accessible but also deep and thorough.

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tgtweak 2y ago

I find it incredibly hard to believe that ultima online was the first application of database sharding, but it may very well be the source of the name. "key-based partitioning" doesn't have the same ring to it, but has existed since the early 90's and possibly late 80's.

strken 2y ago
The article contains the literal quote "It means database partitioning — of worlds." I don't think it is claiming that UO invented partitioning.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
prepend 2y ago
The technique has existed forever. I think UO called is sharding and the name stuck from them.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nilsherzig 2y ago
I can't seem to find it right now, but I read an article, shared in the "awesome-scalability" GitHub repo, which referenced a 1978 paper, written by a couple of IBM researchers, about sharding and a lot of seemingly modern database things.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
gregw2 2y ago
Agreed. I have worked at a Fortune 100 firm where its business ran (still runs) off of an ERP sharded into 100 instances, each representing one key facility since the mid-90s. It took extra work in the early days to centralize analytics and manage deployments and data, but it has been very resilient (low blast radius in today's terminology) and natural for low risk deployments, rolling out of upgrades to one site, then the rest in batches.
nemo44x 2y ago
Key-based partitioning has existed since card catalogs at libraries and I’m sure there’s examples from before then.

runevault 2y ago

Raph's practical creativity talk is still one of my favorite I've watched from GDC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVTxGpEO30&pp=ygUPcmFwaCBrb3N0ZXIgZ2Rj https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVTxGpEO30&pp=ygUPcmFwaCBrb...

pchristensen 2y ago

I'll put in a plug for his book Theory of Fun for Game Design (https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1449363210 https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/144...). It's a great read that's accessible but also deep and thorough.