3 ms·

I don't know much about RethinkDB yet, but I will say that I have been a big fan (online) of one of its founders, Slava Akhmechet, for years. I've never met hi

I don't know much about RethinkDB yet, but I will say that I have been a big fan (online) of one of its founders, Slava Akhmechet, for years. I've never met him, but he wrote some terrific articles on his website, http://www.defmacro.org/ http://www.defmacro.org/ , a few years ago. Start at the bottom of the list of articles, with "The Nature of Lisp." Slava is a deep thinker, which makes me very excited to take a look at RethinkDB.

reinhardt 14y ago
So is RethinkDB written in Lisp?
- NathanKP 14y ago
  No according the website it is written in C++.
  - erichocean 14y ago
    And yet the Clojure guy did his distributed DB in Clojure (aka, Lisp). Kind of makes me wonder why C++ was chosen...
    - alexpopescu 14y ago
      I've joined RethinkDB just a couple of months ago, so I might not have all the historical facts right, but here is what I know. In a previous incarnation RethinkDB was a highly optimized storage engine for SSDs implemented in C++ to be able to take full advantage of both low level SSD and kernel access. The current distributed engine was built on top on this storage engine and I think it only made sense to continue with C++.
      - leif 14y ago
        Originally, RethinkDB was to be a MySQL storage engine, which made C++ the natural choice. They pivoted away from MySQL after my short stint in the beginning so I can't speak to why the storage code was kept (though I can't imagine it's because my code was so great they couldn't bear to throw it away). Storage people tend to stick close to the metal, in general. This means C or C++ in most cases, for better or for worse.
aberman 14y ago
I wish I could up-vote this a thousand times. Slava is one of the most genuine founders I've met, and I wish him and RethinkDB all the best.
jgw 14y ago
Indeed - he mentions in the article that he set himself a goal to convert 10 programmers into Lispers. Sounds like he probably has that many just in this thread! Kudos, sir!
- samstokes 14y ago
  He didn't make me a Lisper (I'm more a Haskell fan these days), but reading Slava's Lisp articles years ago was a significant part of what set me on my current career path. He helped get me into functional programming, which got me a contract job [1], which is how I met one of my current co-founders. [1] http://martin.kleppmann.com/2009/09/18/the-python-paradox-is-now-the-scala-paradox.html http://martin.kleppmann.com/2009/09/18/the-python-paradox-is...

reinhardt 14y ago

So is RethinkDB written in Lisp?

NathanKP 14y ago
No according the website it is written in C++.
- erichocean 14y ago
  And yet the Clojure guy did his distributed DB in Clojure (aka, Lisp). Kind of makes me wonder why C++ was chosen...
  - alexpopescu 14y ago
    I've joined RethinkDB just a couple of months ago, so I might not have all the historical facts right, but here is what I know. In a previous incarnation RethinkDB was a highly optimized storage engine for SSDs implemented in C++ to be able to take full advantage of both low level SSD and kernel access. The current distributed engine was built on top on this storage engine and I think it only made sense to continue with C++.
    - leif 14y ago
      Originally, RethinkDB was to be a MySQL storage engine, which made C++ the natural choice. They pivoted away from MySQL after my short stint in the beginning so I can't speak to why the storage code was kept (though I can't imagine it's because my code was so great they couldn't bear to throw it away). Storage people tend to stick close to the metal, in general. This means C or C++ in most cases, for better or for worse.

aberman 14y ago

I wish I could up-vote this a thousand times. Slava is one of the most genuine founders I've met, and I wish him and RethinkDB all the best.

jgw 14y ago

Indeed - he mentions in the article that he set himself a goal to convert 10 programmers into Lispers. Sounds like he probably has that many just in this thread! Kudos, sir!

samstokes 14y ago
He didn't make me a Lisper (I'm more a Haskell fan these days), but reading Slava's Lisp articles years ago was a significant part of what set me on my current career path. He helped get me into functional programming, which got me a contract job [1], which is how I met one of my current co-founders. [1] http://martin.kleppmann.com/2009/09/18/the-python-paradox-is-now-the-scala-paradox.html http://martin.kleppmann.com/2009/09/18/the-python-paradox-is...