[msully4321]

I talked a bit about this in my release day talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRZ3o-NsU_4&t=8151s), but:

* Every edgedb type has a postgres table

* "single" properties and links are stored as columns in that table (links as the uuid of the target)

* "multi" properties/links are stored as a link table

So it's basically just translated to a relational database in normal form

[c4m]

Thanks, this is helpful!

I think what I'm trying to understand is this: if I use EdgeDB in production, how often will I end up dropping down to the SQL level to debug things? If I'm trying to debug a slow query, can I do it at the EdgeDB level? Or will I have to open a PostgreSQL terminal, see how things are laid out there, run EXPLAINs, check the slow query log, and so on?

When I use ORMs, the answer to this is "pretty often". The ORM makes my application code cleaner, but I still need to have a complete understanding of the underlying SQL representation in order to ensure good performance and debug errors. I'm curious how that compares to using EdgeDB.

[colinmcd]

The goal is to never drop down to SQL. If there's something you can express in SQL but can't express in EdgeQL, it's a bug.

We're working on proper query profiling now, but in the meantime the "slow query" problem you see with ORMs happens quite rarely with EdgeQL. For starters a lot of ORM performance issues are causes by the fact that they secretly do a bunch of roundtrips under the hood. EdgeQL queries compile to a single SQL query always. Also, since we target Postgres exclusively, we can produce queries that take full advantage of its (rather preposterous) power and performance. We extensively test the performance of things like extremely deep/wide fetching, lots of nested & complex filter expressions, computed properties, subqueries, polymorphics, etc. Obviously nothing is 100% but we're pretty confident in saying that EdgeQL performance is good.

[ignoramous]

> So it's basically just translated to a relational database in normal form

So... just an ORM ;)

[colinmcd]

In the sense that "object-relational mapping" is happening, then sure. The problem with the "ORM" term is that it comes loaded with a bunch of preconceptions that don't apply to EdgeDB. EdgeQL is a full query language with a standard library, grammar, and feature parity with SQL (almost). We've got a binary protocol. You use EdgeDB without ever needing to think about the layer beneath it—totally non-leaky. It's also not a library, which most people assume when you say "ORM".

[ignoramous]

Having worked on databases, I am not the one to discount the effort that has gone into building EdgeDB. I was but jokingly referring to this: https://www.edgedb.com/_images/_blog/40fc2a2a81483bb0979c96d...

Btw, if you folks have time, then EdgeDB should consider penning posts like the ones timescale has been doing for 3 years or so, in its march to industry leadership.