4 ms·

So why did you migrate? There is a very brief mention of needing to scale an order of magnitude or two. Could you elaborate?

by rpedela 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
thepicard 13y ago
I also have this question. There are technical reasons that PostgreSQL is better than MySQL, especially when it comes to features, but none are mentioned here. > From the development perspective Postgres was a necessity. Not a slam dunk but objectively a better tool for our use case. In what way? > And if we have countless reasons, all good, but they’re nuanced and technical and tricky to impart to a non-technical audience, where does that leave us? HN would be interested in those reasons, I know I am. > The vast majority of the company probably still doesn’t get why we went through this painful contortion at the expense of doing, well, a lot of other things. Neither do I, since none are given. Though I also understand that the point of the post was about trust. It's great that there is that trust within SparkFun, I would love such an environment.
brennen 13y ago
Awright, so I didn't write the linked piece, but Chris isn't talking about scaling our web traffic by an order of magnitude. We're a small-to-mid-size web store & light manufacturer and we do decent business and very occasionally get a bunch of traffic as far as mid-sized web stores go. We're not a big service provider, and we're never going to be one in the sense where we have to worry about scale the way that people with Real Problems do. We do plan to store a bunch more data than we deal with now, but mostly we migrated because we're looking to build a better ball of mud, to borrow a perfectly legitimate analogy from elsewhere in the thread. What we'd like to scale somewhat cleanly is a business which benefits from us building less broken applications, and PostgreSQL is obviously a less broken foundation for the kind of software where it matters if you are correct about things. If anyone would like a reason to let us know at length what incomparable buffoons we must be for any of writing PHP, rolling our own application framework, still owning physical hardware, or getting a little overexcited when the code doesn't break too badly, I will cop to all of those and more in public, but please don't read the linked post as a strong technical claim about Hard Problems in the Land of Webscalonia which demands & merits a detailed refutation. Posts on sparkfun.com don't tend to be written for a web nerd audience (we sell blinkenlights) and most of us survey a very different conceptual landscape on a day-to-day basis from the average HN reader. (For clarity here, I write web stuff at SparkFun, and most of my time lately has been on this project. Author of linked piece is my boss.) Edit: And my apologies if this reply to a rather simple question comes off a bit reactive; consider this my reply to the thread as a whole?
- strlen 13y ago
  Not reactive at all, well put response to mostly confused posts (including my own). I think there was mis-understanding on what was meant by scaling -- web community took it to mean something very different from what you meant. Honestly this befuddled me as well me as well, so I suspected as much -- I didn't think Sparkfun would need to go to horizontal scaling which I am quite confident you'll likely never need (unless you're doing something very wrong). One way someone else put it, MySQL is great if you're using it as a datastore to build an API layer on top (with relational features being a huge plus as opposed to a K/V store). Postgres, on the other hand, effectively does what an RDBMS was originally meant to do -- it itself acts as that data access API. Also SparkFun is an awesome company -- the SparkFun Arduino kits on my desk do a lot more than blink lights (though they do that too). Please continue to use run-times may be less trendy but which return responses quickly and using physical hardware too.
- falcolas 13y ago
  Wait... > PostgreSQL is obviously a less broken foundation for the kind of software where it matters if you are correct about things. and > writing PHP, rolling our own application framework In the same explanation? Seems like you still have some points where you can make serious gains in your technology stack that would have bought you more tangible benefits albeit not as much positive publicity.
  - brennen 13y ago
    Thanks. I never know I'm actually in a conversation about how I do my job until this comment shows up.
    - falcolas 13y ago
      In my honest opinion, if you choose to change to PostgreSQL because it's "less broken" but still use PHP as your front end, I feel completely justified in asking WTF. Sure, you're securing the barn doors nicely, but the rest of the barn might as well be made of tissue paper. It is your job, and it's not my place to comment about how to do your job; but when making such a public announcement, 'less broken' when wrapped with PHP and custom frameworks isn't a very compelling message.

So why did you migrate? There is a very brief mention of needing to scale an order of magnitude or two. Could you elaborate?

by rpedela 13y ago

So why did you migrate? There is a very brief mention of needing to scale an order of magnitude or two. Could you elaborate?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

thepicard 13y ago

I also have this question. There are technical reasons that PostgreSQL is better than MySQL, especially when it comes to features, but none are mentioned here. > From the development perspective Postgres was a necessity. Not a slam dunk but objectively a better tool for our use case. In what way? > And if we have countless reasons, all good, but they’re nuanced and technical and tricky to impart to a non-technical audience, where does that leave us? HN would be interested in those reasons, I know I am. > The vast majority of the company probably still doesn’t get why we went through this painful contortion at the expense of doing, well, a lot of other things. Neither do I, since none are given. Though I also understand that the point of the post was about trust. It's great that there is that trust within SparkFun, I would love such an environment.

brennen 13y ago

Awright, so I didn't write the linked piece, but Chris isn't talking about scaling our web traffic by an order of magnitude. We're a small-to-mid-size web store & light manufacturer and we do decent business and very occasionally get a bunch of traffic as far as mid-sized web stores go. We're not a big service provider, and we're never going to be one in the sense where we have to worry about scale the way that people with Real Problems do. We do plan to store a bunch more data than we deal with now, but mostly we migrated because we're looking to build a better ball of mud, to borrow a perfectly legitimate analogy from elsewhere in the thread. What we'd like to scale somewhat cleanly is a business which benefits from us building less broken applications, and PostgreSQL is obviously a less broken foundation for the kind of software where it matters if you are correct about things. If anyone would like a reason to let us know at length what incomparable buffoons we must be for any of writing PHP, rolling our own application framework, still owning physical hardware, or getting a little overexcited when the code doesn't break too badly, I will cop to all of those and more in public, but please don't read the linked post as a strong technical claim about Hard Problems in the Land of Webscalonia which demands & merits a detailed refutation. Posts on sparkfun.com don't tend to be written for a web nerd audience (we sell blinkenlights) and most of us survey a very different conceptual landscape on a day-to-day basis from the average HN reader. (For clarity here, I write web stuff at SparkFun, and most of my time lately has been on this project. Author of linked piece is my boss.) Edit: And my apologies if this reply to a rather simple question comes off a bit reactive; consider this my reply to the thread as a whole?

strlen 13y ago
Not reactive at all, well put response to mostly confused posts (including my own). I think there was mis-understanding on what was meant by scaling -- web community took it to mean something very different from what you meant. Honestly this befuddled me as well me as well, so I suspected as much -- I didn't think Sparkfun would need to go to horizontal scaling which I am quite confident you'll likely never need (unless you're doing something very wrong). One way someone else put it, MySQL is great if you're using it as a datastore to build an API layer on top (with relational features being a huge plus as opposed to a K/V store). Postgres, on the other hand, effectively does what an RDBMS was originally meant to do -- it itself acts as that data access API. Also SparkFun is an awesome company -- the SparkFun Arduino kits on my desk do a lot more than blink lights (though they do that too). Please continue to use run-times may be less trendy but which return responses quickly and using physical hardware too.
falcolas 13y ago
Wait... > PostgreSQL is obviously a less broken foundation for the kind of software where it matters if you are correct about things. and > writing PHP, rolling our own application framework In the same explanation? Seems like you still have some points where you can make serious gains in your technology stack that would have bought you more tangible benefits albeit not as much positive publicity.
- brennen 13y ago
  Thanks. I never know I'm actually in a conversation about how I do my job until this comment shows up.
  - falcolas 13y ago
    In my honest opinion, if you choose to change to PostgreSQL because it's "less broken" but still use PHP as your front end, I feel completely justified in asking WTF. Sure, you're securing the barn doors nicely, but the rest of the barn might as well be made of tissue paper. It is your job, and it's not my place to comment about how to do your job; but when making such a public announcement, 'less broken' when wrapped with PHP and custom frameworks isn't a very compelling message.