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Databases & Data

The most popular blog posts about databases & data on Hacker News. 48 posts.

2011
31

NoSQL is What?

I found myself reading NoSQL is a Premature Optimization a few minutes ago and threw up in my mouth a little. That article is so far off base that I’m not even sure where to start, so I guess…

32

Protocol Buffers, Avro, Thrift & MessagePack

Perhaps one of the first inescapable observations that a new Google developer ( Noogler ) makes once they dive into the code is that Protocol Buffers (PB) is the "language of data" at Google. Put simply, Protocol Buffers are used for serialization, RPC, and about everything in between .

38

Google+ launches ‘Ripples’ visualisation

After what appears to be have been a rapid and widespread take-up of its Google+ social media service, Google has now launched details of its 'Ripples' feature. Significantly, news of the release was made by Fernanda Viegas, one of the most prominent names in the field and co-leader, with Martin Wattenberg, of…

40

MySQL Text vs. Varchar Performance

Starting with MySQL 5.0.3, the maximum field length for VARCHAR fields was increased from 255 characters to 65,535 characters. This is good news, as VARCHAR fields, as opposed to TEXT fields, are stored in-row for the MyISAM storage engine (InnoDB has different characteristics). TEXT and BLOB fields are not stored…

44

Visualizing Time with the Infinity Hour Chart

This is another experiment in visualizing 24-hour cyclical data. My last post explored a method of linear representation (the Double Time Bar Chart). Linear representations have problems when it comes to showing the cyclical nature of time data (ie there is no start or end of a 24 hour cycle). Inspiration When trying…

48

MongoDB and Riak, In Context (and an apology)

There has been quite a bit of furor and excitement on the Internet this week regarding some very public criticisms (and defenses) of MongoDB and its creators, 10gen . Unfortunately, a ghost from my recent past also resurfaced as a result. Let me begin by apologizing to 10gen and its engineers for what I said at JSConf…