5 ms·

I scrolled to a random page. It was totally absurd, stopped right there. "Crucially, because open-source software tends to be written by people who care deeply

I scrolled to a random page. It was totally absurd, stopped right there. "Crucially, because open-source software tends to be written by people who care deeply about its quality (often because they have a direct personal stake in ensuring that the software works as well as possible), it is often of the very highest standard (PostgreSQL, Linux, MySQL, XBMC, Hadoop, Android, VLC, Neo4JS, Redis, 7Zip, FreeBSD, golang, PHP, Python, R, Nginx, Apache, node.js, Chrome, Firefox...). On the other hand, commercial software is often designed by committee, written in cube farms and developed without proper guidance or inspiration (Microsoft BOB, RealPlayer, Internet Explorer 6, iOS Maps, Lotus Notes, Windows ME, Windows Vista, QuickTime, SharePoint..."

bergeoisie 12y ago
Weird that OpenSSL isn't on the list of OSS projects.
- tedunangst 12y ago
  Weird that Google Maps isn't on the list of commercial projects next to iOS Maps...
fluffygrenade 12y ago
I didn't even get that far. Clearly SQL Server definitely wasn't suitable for our 4.5TiB of LoB financial data in 500 tables for the last 15 years and was such poor quality that we have absolutely no problems whatsoever running two 48 core Xeons with 64GiB of RAM at 50% load 24/7... Edit: I live down the road from the guy: Matthew Byrne (address removed, but lives in Shepperton, UK) Please have enough balls to put your name on the site and the article or enough skills to hide your whois entry.
- partisan 12y ago
  Just curious as to why the article merits this type of vitriol. I'm a .NET/SQL Server guy from the states, so I have no skin in this game, but it just seems to me that this is unwarranted.
  - fluffygrenade 12y ago
    Because most of it is circa 1998 Slashdot-esque content which really isn't constructive and only damages what little faith people have in this industry even further. The article itself is vitriol. Not only that, the site is designed to intentionally hide the author obviously because being accountable for an opinion is probably bad for them in this case.
    - eksith 12y ago
      There are many reasons not to freely give out your address, or name for that matter. The validity of ideas need not be tied to an identity. If an idea can stand on its own, then so be it. If not, you can just move on. "...being accountable for an opinion is probably bad for them in this case." Same for you as well, it seems.
    - JohnBooty 12y ago
      So your logic is: "This guy has database opinions I don't like, and he has gotten some facts wrong, so he ought to put his real identity and address on the Internet for all to see?" I mean, what? I'll take Slashdot-style open source zealotry over something that smells a little bit like 4chan-style threats of "doxxing," thanks very much. Your comment does not belong on Hacker News.
      - DominikD 12y ago
        Signing your opinion with your nick or name has nothing to do with doxing. It's not like we're talking about his address and SSN. But if you don't like the word "vitriol", use "FUD" instead, because that's what it is. There are lots of things about MS SQL one could point out and say: hey, this is broken. But the vast number of statements on that page are empty, misleading or simply untrue. That being said, I don't think this site is that harmful. People who'd eat this content up won't read it (tl;dr) and people who do read it will most likely have their own opinion anyway. It's not an authoritative source people tend to trust like, say, Wikipedia, so I'm not bothered about it personally.
        12y ago
rzimmerman 12y ago
I hit the one about how MS SQL Server doesn't run on Linux and had a similar reaction.
keithwarren 12y ago
I know numerous guys on the SQL Server team and it actually causes me a bit of anger when I read a clueless statement like that, for the author I feel sorry for his ignorance; the anger comes from the fact that lots of clueless people will actually read this and believe it to be authoritarian because of the verbosity of it alone.
- rbanffy 12y ago
  The SQL Server group (and their product) is one of the very few things in Microsoft that has earned my deepest respect. Not Windows, not Exchange and, certainly, not ShamePoint. I frequently rank Microsoft's product line as follows: 1 - Natural keyboard - the one there is no reasonable replacement for (the kinesis keyboards are 5 times as expensive). If there is a reason my none of my machines is 100% Microsoft free, this is it. 2 - their mice - simple, precise, comfortable, inexpensive 3 - SQL Server - it almost makes having a Windows server around worth the pain. Having said that, I have enormous respect for PostgreSQL. It's a very solid RDBMS and it's my database of choice most of the time. It is more comfortable to use from a command line than SQL Server will ever be (which is OK, because a CLI is not a high priority over there).
  - Implicated 12y ago
    I just can't replace the keyboard.
- Pherdnut 12y ago
  I wouldn't let it anger you. I care about quality but every for-profit-company development team I've been on, I was forced to hold my nose at some point/many points/constantly due to some feature demand(s) that had nothing to do with providing a higher quality product and everything to do with either a customer and/or a manager that was a complete and total moron.
mirsadm 12y ago
As someone that uses PostgreSQL, would you care to elaborate on the topic? I haven't used MS SQL Server so maybe if you can actually provide some useful information we can start a discussion and learn something new.
- WorldWideWayne 12y ago
  I think many IT departments choose MSSQL for the same reason they choose Windows - it's an easy to setup system with good tools and lots of commercial support. MSSQL also integrates very tightly with Windows and you can use single-sign-on via Windows authentication with no setup. The administration GUI included with SQL Server (called SQL Server Management Studio/SSMS) is very robust and whenever I look, I always see other people asking around for something as good as SSMS for other RDBMS. If you use Unix you might prefer your command line tools, but a lot folks would rather obviously use a GUI. For developers, I haven't found anything better than SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) which is a set of extensions for Visual Studio that let you design and develop a SQL Server database. It creates version migration scripts, diffs database schemas and data, integrates with git and other source control providers and generates DML scripts among other things.

bergeoisie 12y ago

Weird that OpenSSL isn't on the list of OSS projects.

tedunangst 12y ago
Weird that Google Maps isn't on the list of commercial projects next to iOS Maps...

fluffygrenade 12y ago

I didn't even get that far. Clearly SQL Server definitely wasn't suitable for our 4.5TiB of LoB financial data in 500 tables for the last 15 years and was such poor quality that we have absolutely no problems whatsoever running two 48 core Xeons with 64GiB of RAM at 50% load 24/7... Edit: I live down the road from the guy: Matthew Byrne (address removed, but lives in Shepperton, UK) Please have enough balls to put your name on the site and the article or enough skills to hide your whois entry.

partisan 12y ago
Just curious as to why the article merits this type of vitriol. I'm a .NET/SQL Server guy from the states, so I have no skin in this game, but it just seems to me that this is unwarranted.
- fluffygrenade 12y ago
  Because most of it is circa 1998 Slashdot-esque content which really isn't constructive and only damages what little faith people have in this industry even further. The article itself is vitriol. Not only that, the site is designed to intentionally hide the author obviously because being accountable for an opinion is probably bad for them in this case.
  - eksith 12y ago
    There are many reasons not to freely give out your address, or name for that matter. The validity of ideas need not be tied to an identity. If an idea can stand on its own, then so be it. If not, you can just move on. "...being accountable for an opinion is probably bad for them in this case." Same for you as well, it seems.
  - JohnBooty 12y ago
    So your logic is: "This guy has database opinions I don't like, and he has gotten some facts wrong, so he ought to put his real identity and address on the Internet for all to see?" I mean, what? I'll take Slashdot-style open source zealotry over something that smells a little bit like 4chan-style threats of "doxxing," thanks very much. Your comment does not belong on Hacker News.
    - DominikD 12y ago
      Signing your opinion with your nick or name has nothing to do with doxing. It's not like we're talking about his address and SSN. But if you don't like the word "vitriol", use "FUD" instead, because that's what it is. There are lots of things about MS SQL one could point out and say: hey, this is broken. But the vast number of statements on that page are empty, misleading or simply untrue. That being said, I don't think this site is that harmful. People who'd eat this content up won't read it (tl;dr) and people who do read it will most likely have their own opinion anyway. It's not an authoritative source people tend to trust like, say, Wikipedia, so I'm not bothered about it personally.
      - 12y ago

rzimmerman 12y ago

I hit the one about how MS SQL Server doesn't run on Linux and had a similar reaction.

keithwarren 12y ago

I know numerous guys on the SQL Server team and it actually causes me a bit of anger when I read a clueless statement like that, for the author I feel sorry for his ignorance; the anger comes from the fact that lots of clueless people will actually read this and believe it to be authoritarian because of the verbosity of it alone.

rbanffy 12y ago
The SQL Server group (and their product) is one of the very few things in Microsoft that has earned my deepest respect. Not Windows, not Exchange and, certainly, not ShamePoint. I frequently rank Microsoft's product line as follows: 1 - Natural keyboard - the one there is no reasonable replacement for (the kinesis keyboards are 5 times as expensive). If there is a reason my none of my machines is 100% Microsoft free, this is it. 2 - their mice - simple, precise, comfortable, inexpensive 3 - SQL Server - it almost makes having a Windows server around worth the pain. Having said that, I have enormous respect for PostgreSQL. It's a very solid RDBMS and it's my database of choice most of the time. It is more comfortable to use from a command line than SQL Server will ever be (which is OK, because a CLI is not a high priority over there).
- Implicated 12y ago
  I just can't replace the keyboard.
Pherdnut 12y ago
I wouldn't let it anger you. I care about quality but every for-profit-company development team I've been on, I was forced to hold my nose at some point/many points/constantly due to some feature demand(s) that had nothing to do with providing a higher quality product and everything to do with either a customer and/or a manager that was a complete and total moron.

mirsadm 12y ago

As someone that uses PostgreSQL, would you care to elaborate on the topic? I haven't used MS SQL Server so maybe if you can actually provide some useful information we can start a discussion and learn something new.

WorldWideWayne 12y ago
I think many IT departments choose MSSQL for the same reason they choose Windows - it's an easy to setup system with good tools and lots of commercial support. MSSQL also integrates very tightly with Windows and you can use single-sign-on via Windows authentication with no setup. The administration GUI included with SQL Server (called SQL Server Management Studio/SSMS) is very robust and whenever I look, I always see other people asking around for something as good as SSMS for other RDBMS. If you use Unix you might prefer your command line tools, but a lot folks would rather obviously use a GUI. For developers, I haven't found anything better than SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) which is a set of extensions for Visual Studio that let you design and develop a SQL Server database. It creates version migration scripts, diffs database schemas and data, integrates with git and other source control providers and generates DML scripts among other things.