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> the old central gate keeping DBA team model I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I agree that ownership should be shared. On the other, app deve

by ttfkam 2y ago

> the old central gate keeping DBA team model I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I agree that ownership should be shared. On the other, app developers really don't consider their data structures as carefully in SQL as they do in-memory. It's odd. The right data structure matters more than a good algorithm since algorithms are easier to change. Once you settle on a list vs a set vs a queue, you're stuck once code is built around it. The same is doubly true for the database schema. Lack of planning and knowledge of expected access patterns can turn an otherwise fast database to mud in no time flat. Once your data is in there, changing the schema is exponentially harder. "I’m a huge proponent of designing your code around the data, rather than the other way around, and I think it’s one of the reasons git has been fairly successful… I will, in fact, claim that the difference between a bad programmer and a good one is whether he considers his code or his data structures more important. Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships." – Linus Torvalds (2006) What is your database but a bunch of data structures and relationships? I get why the gatekeeping occurred. I don't agree with it, but I understand it. Far too many folks consider expertise in data stores to be optional as developers.

sgarland 2y ago
100% on all points. I’m a fan of gatekeeping things that are hard to get right, and hard to undo. If you can prove that you know what you’re doing, by all means, own your stuff. But until then, yes, I’d like to watch over your shoulder, and hopefully teach you how to do it right. The fact that DBs are data structures but are ignored has always irritated me. If I pushed a PR using lists for everything regardless of their practicality, I’d be rightly told to try again. But push a PR with a schema using similar suboptimal choices, and no one blinks an eye.
dalyons 2y ago
I agree but also I think I could be clearer about the key advantage of the distributed many dbs model… it’s that I don’t have to care if people are good at anything that you said :). If teams want to do dumb things with their schema, fine, that’s on them and they’ll have to deal with the consequences. If it matters, they’ll learn and get better. If they want to buy their way out of it with their latency and infra budget instead, that’s honestly fine too. With many smaller databases owned separately, the blast radius of bad db decisions is small/local.

by ttfkam 2y ago

sgarland 2y ago

100% on all points. I’m a fan of gatekeeping things that are hard to get right, and hard to undo. If you can prove that you know what you’re doing, by all means, own your stuff. But until then, yes, I’d like to watch over your shoulder, and hopefully teach you how to do it right. The fact that DBs are data structures but are ignored has always irritated me. If I pushed a PR using lists for everything regardless of their practicality, I’d be rightly told to try again. But push a PR with a schema using similar suboptimal choices, and no one blinks an eye.

dalyons 2y ago

I agree but also I think I could be clearer about the key advantage of the distributed many dbs model… it’s that I don’t have to care if people are good at anything that you said :). If teams want to do dumb things with their schema, fine, that’s on them and they’ll have to deal with the consequences. If it matters, they’ll learn and get better. If they want to buy their way out of it with their latency and infra budget instead, that’s honestly fine too. With many smaller databases owned separately, the blast radius of bad db decisions is small/local.