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by oliviergg 65 days ago
Please … Every few years the pendulum swings. First it was “relational databases are too rigid, just use NoSQL.” Then “NoSQL is a mess, just go back to Postgres.” Now: “do you even need a database at all, just use flat files.” Each wave is partially right. But… each wave is about to rediscover, the hard way, exactly why the previous generation made the choices they did. SQLite is the answer to every painful lesson learned, every scar from long debug night the last time someone thought “a JSON file is basically a database.”
2 comments

Michael Stonebraker used to write long, scathing critiques of modern data storage/retrieval fads, and how they were forgetting important historical lessons.

They were terrific reads; his writing on object-oriented databases was the most fun technical reading I did in grad school. And I even learned a lot!

Where was this? I would like to read. I have read his papers and they are great, and usually surprisingly readable.
It has been a long time, but I think we were reading out of various editions of the Red Book

http://www.redbook.io/

Yes, but you are probably a bit too polite. And I'm not sure how to do justice to SQLite, Postgres and my new favourite toy DuckDB.
I've been really happy with DuckDB, and I love that fact that it can operate directly on things like JSON an JSONL. It's become my data swiss army knife.