Once you've abstacted it to a service, your API is what you and your client (should) care about, and many of the arguments for more specialized implementations no longer apply. Personally, I think the only reason I would go with something like sqlite instead of Postgres/Mysql behind a microservice is if I was baking the date into it with each release, so the sqlite data files are shipped with the version released. Even then, I'm not sure there's any reason I would do anything other than sqlite though. Even if I had need of lots of JSON files, I would probably have my build procedure process them into an sqlite file I tested and shipped with, if only because I would then avoid having to deal with all the problems this guy encountered by trying to make his own database.
Re:Json-Base – Database built as JSON files
by dnautics on Thursday July 02, 2020 @06:07PM
(#23718661)
I would say operator friendliness is actually the best reason to roll your own (was clearly not the case here). If you have a system that is less complex, because it meets your use case only and not the competing use cases of every damn engineering outfit that can pay overpaid and underqualified devs to commit to an open sourced codebase, and as a result requires less labor to manage (for example, not using kubernetes for a 3 person startup), you should roll your own.
Re:Json-Base – Database built as JSON files
by kbenson on Thursday July 02, 2020 @07:20PM
(#23719189)
Sure, but there are different levels of "roll your own". Mysql or Pestresql + a text field and a microservice front end for access control and JSON validation (if you don't want to use the included components from those respective projects that handle those for you) is easier and friendlier most of the time than a microservice on top of sqlite on a local disk, which is friendlier than replacing sqlite with BDB, which is probably friendlier than rolling your own storage format.
Re:Json-Base – Database built as JSON files
by dnautics on Thursday July 02, 2020 @07:32PM
(#23719284)
Oh yeah. Unless you're actually in the database biz, Don't roll you own database. Those things are rock solid, usually easy (well postgres and mysql/maria are anyways) and state is hard.
Re:Json-Base – Database built as JSON files
by imtringued on Friday July 03, 2020 @04:57AM
(#23722298)
Rolling something yourself has the benefit that you don't need to teach yourself how the system works because you built it but once you want someone else to join the team this fires back because that person needs to be taught how your database works. If the database in question was widely used then spending time on learning a new database would be worth the investment but if it is only used internally then it's just a waste of time.
I'm pretty sure the cascading series of "his next problem" sentences implies that there were plenty of problems with the architecture that weren't identified ahead of time, and they had to encounter and then fix as a series of bugs.
> And still, there's a lot to be said for keeping your developer's entertained so they stick around.
There's a difference between keeping your developers entertained and letting them infect production with ill-conceived projects that cause problems for all those that interact with them.
This project is reimplmenting something already solved multiple times. There are many document stores, and JSON interfaces and addon to traditional RDBMS, so what was being solved here, other than letting someone scratch an itch at the expense of the division he's working in. You're better off giving him 20% time for his own projects and calling it a day if you really think entertaining your developers is important enough to warrant it.
There are times when rolling your own is useful. Generally when there's some extreme requirements for space or performance, but even that becomes rare when the area is mature and explored thoroughly. A database, even a JSON document store of some sort, is so mature that to make it worth while for one person to roll their own when it seems to need all the common features (locking, remote access, different clients), that to actually recoup the cost of building our own (much less the future cost of troubleshooting and bug fixing) is almost impossible unless you're somehow hired a genius workaholic for peanuts.