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Companies really need to do a better job of making ELI5 descriptions. This means nothing to me: > Datomic is a database of flexible, time-based facts, supporti
by Jemaclus 13y ago
Companies really need to do a better job of making ELI5 descriptions. This means nothing to me:
> Datomic is a database of flexible, time-based facts, supporting queries and joins, with elastic scalability, and ACID transactions.
> Datomic can leverage highly-available, distributed storage services, and puts declarative power into the hands of application developers.
What does that even mean? I'm pretty good at databases, and I know what transactions and queries and joins and stuff, but this explanation does a pretty poor job of explaining what Datatomic is and why I should use it.
What's a "time-based fact"? What does putting "declarative power in the hands of application developers" mean? Don't all databases support queries? Don't most relational databases support joins and transactions?
It just seems like a buzz-word filled fluff phrase that says "Datatomic is a database," but I don't know why I would use it over, say, MySQL or Mongo or whatever.
I had to go to Cognitect's site (http://cognitect.com/datomic http://cognitect.com/datomic) to get a better explanation:
>Datomic is built on immutable data; facts are never forgotten or overwritten. This means complete auditability is built in from the start - including the transactions that modify your database. And because Datomic is built on immutable data, you can explore possible future scenarios by issuing transactions against a database and decide to commit them only after verifying the results.
Ok, that makes a little more sense, but it's still not clear what differentiates this from other database systems.
I'm not affiliated with them at all, but I think SiftScience.com does a great job of explaining their product simply and efficiently: https://siftscience.com/ https://siftscience.com/
> Fight Fraud with Machine Learning
> Sift Science monitors your site's traffic in real time and alerts you instantly to fraudulent activity.
Simply detects fraud. Done.
Or EasyPost.com:
> Shipping for developers
> EasyPost allows you to integrate shipping APIs into any application in minutes.
Don't just spit buzz words and technical terms at me. Tell me what it does.
> Datomic is a database that, among other things, specializes in tracking data over time, allowing you to test a transaction before saving the data. True accountability from the beginning!
Probably not even accurate (again, I don't understand Datomic's premise), but that sounds more explanatory than their current buzz word-filled blurb.
To any startups watching: have something on your front page that is an ELI5 description of your product.
- cordite 13y agoI had to look up what ELI5 meant :) For any others that are wondering, "Explain Like I'm 5"
- hammerandtongs 13y agoObviously fails the ELI5 but - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_database https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_database
- coolsunglasses 13y agoReproducibility of results from the canonical data store thanks to having the full history of everything is pretty great. "Code can never corrupt data again"
- rdtsc 13y agoIn theory sounds good but this is just not feasible. Couple of scenarios: 1) A runaway data generator. Somehow you end up confusing milliseconds with seconds and now you start logging 1000x more data than you intended, you leave for the weekend and find your storage is full of junk 2) Sensitive data. Felix has just inserted all the passwords and credit card numbers in the database.
- puredanger 13y agoDatomic offers excision to cover cases like these (or other common cases where you are required by law to forget things). http://blog.datomic.com/2013/05/excision.html http://blog.datomic.com/2013/05/excision.html
- coolsunglasses 13y agoDo you assume by default that people can't anticipate obvious things like this in general or only when it's talented programmers working on a database?
- rdtsc 13y ago> or only when it's talented programmers working on a database? I'll pretend I don't know who Hickey is and just say that I expect a lot of stupid decisions can be made when coming up with "a completely new way of looking or storing data". Some databases (cough...cough...starts with M) shipped their database product with unacknowledged writes as the default, oops. Everyone can make a database. Now let's dig deeper. The reason I asked what I asked it because given the architecture of Datomic and the claims made, that corner case (excision) would not be trivial or and would have to be implemented as a hack on the side. That is why I asked. In some databases it is easier to do, in that architecture it is hard. > or only when it's talented programmers working on a database? Who are these talented programmers? Are you a talented programmer?