[charcircuit]

/dev/null is not a database. By this logic is a hard disk a database, is a CD a database. No. They are storage mediums. You could store a database on them, but they themselves are not a database.

Considering there is no way to read back data written to /dev/null it will not be useful for storing database data.

[jonathrg]

You can store any data as long as it doesn't contain any ones

[saltcured]

And, you don't depend on it remembering how many zeros you wrote last.

[chrisweekly]

seems you've missed the joke

[charcircuit]

It's not a funny one if it was one. Of course something is going to be a bad database if it's not a database.

[brobbin]

It's nerd humor. You're not supposed to find it funny, but nod along approvingly while noticing how awfully clever you are for noticing the attempt at being funny.

[dmytrish]

Considering that D in "ACID" stands for "durable", it's a pretty sloppy joke.

[jfengel]

It's not a great joke, to be sure. But the essence of it is that it's a good database, by relevant but inappropriate standards.

[tgv]

Insufficient/incomplete rather than inappropriate, perhaps?

[jfengel]

The problem with the joke, as I see it, is that it only works with a colloquial definition of ACID. If it worked with a formal definition, it would be funnier by having a twinge of insight.

It's as if the joke requires two steps away from reality: first to apply the definition to a domain where it doesn't apply, then mis-reading the definition to make it fit. Having to go two steps like that spoils the feeling of insight that makes a joke like this work.

The article doesn't belabor the gag, which is a point in its favor. It has to hit you with its punch line and then quit before it wears out its welcome.

[voidfunc]

"Its not funny" says the one guy in a room where literally everyone else is laughing and riffing on the joke.

Your humor unit might be defective.