For the record, I use sqlalchemy 0.6.6 regularly under fairly heavy load, and have never had a problem with it. Any 'sqlalchemy bugs' are inevitably coding mistakes on my part.
Yeah, I found that bit quite vague. Are they using SQLAlchemy's object layer, but just not the high level query stuff? Or are they using only the low-level query stuff and nothing else?
I'd love to know more about how their system works, if they are indeed not using an ORM.
Every time I've tried to build something without an ORM, I just end up writing my own shitty one accidentally.
We got a dozen or so email list requests for support from people who I know to be from Dropbox in late 2008. At that time, we were at version 0.4.8. That is an extremely old version and the codebase was quite immature at that time - I personally didn't use SQLAlchemy in production until 0.5 (which of course is because Python was hardly used at all in the early 2000's outside of the zope community, so I was still stuck with Java/Perl gigs). However I am still quite skeptical of the claim that it returned the wrong results. You're expected to watch the SQL you're telling it to generate during development. It will always be true that pushing an ORM will not always generate the SQL you want - which is why you have to make sure those queries are how they should be, before pushing to production. The ORM will of course stick to the plan you've given it - it isn't "deciding" anything, and at worst it can only misinterpret your intent - just like any library.
My strategy with SQLAlchemy has always been to under-promote it. If you have lots of big players early adopting you and hitting all the pointy edges, it can damage your rep. There's a group of major folks out there who will never use my library due to old experiences. Others like Reddit and Yelp have hung on, and apparently dropbox is still using the core, hooray !
That's why I'm always amazed at how aggressively MongoDB is promoted, when it seems like they're still going through a lot of growing pains. I guess they sort of have to, given that they're a business and all.
I'd love to know more about how their system works, if they are indeed not using an ORM.
Every time I've tried to build something without an ORM, I just end up writing my own shitty one accidentally.