The document provides an overview of databases, emphasizing the importance of relational databases and the SQL query language for durable storage and consistency. It discusses ACID properties, administration overhead, and the differences between various database systems like MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server. Additionally, it highlights the need for effective programming practices, including version control and leveraging existing libraries.

1. The RDBMS You Should
Be Using
Barney Boisvert - dev.Objective() 2016
About Me
Software Craftsman
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Tooling

2. What is a Database?
What is a Database?
a place to store things "permanently"
a place applications collaborate
a place to cache complex results
a place to write audit logs

3. What is a Database?
durable storage (not Redis!)
structured data (not MongoDB!)
concurrent interaction (not SQLite!)
query language (not Couchbase!)
What is a Database?
query language
durable storage

4. Lingua Franca
success OR error
Relational database
SQL as query language
durable storage
relational model
ACID transactions
CAP Theorem
Consistency: one single data state
Availability: all requests get responses
Partition Tolerance: network partitioning

5. ACID
Atomic: all or nothing
Consistent: all constraints are met before commit
Isolated: serialized behaviour under concurrency
Durable: once committed, always committed
DDL & DML
Data Definition Language: the portion of SQL used to manipulate the structure of
your database
Data Manipulation Language: the portion of SQL used to manipulate the data in
your database

6. why not both?!
DDL & DML
ACID applies to both. Except in MariaDB (née MySQL):
ALTER DATABASE ... UPGRADE DATA DIRECTORY NAME ALTER EVENT
ALTER FUNCTION ALTER PROCEDURE ALTER SERVER
ALTER TABLE ALTER VIEW ANALYZE TABLE
BEGIN CACHE INDEX CHANGE MASTER TO
CHECK TABLE CREATE DATABASE CREATE EVENT
CREATE FUNCTION CREATE INDEX CREATE PROCEDURE
CREATE ROLE CREATE SERVER CREATE TABLE
CREATE TRIGGER CREATE USER CREATE VIEW
DROP DATABASE DROP EVENT DROP FUNCTION
DROP INDEX DROP PROCEDURE DROP TABLE
DROP TRIGGER DROP ROLE DROP SERVER
DROP USER DROP VIEW FLUSH
GRANT LOAD INDEX INTO CACHE LOCK TABLES
OPTIMIZE TABLE RENAME TABLE RENAME USER
REPAIR TABLE RESET REVOKE
SET PASSWORD SHUTDOWN START SLAVE
START TRANSACTION STOP SLAVE TRUNCATE TABLE
https://mariadb.com/kb/en/mariadb/sql-statements-that-cause-an-implicit-commit/
Programmability
in application or in database?
surrogate key generation
constraints
cascade deletes
calculated fields
"hot" materialized views

7. Databases as Artifacts
test queries
query tuning
mid-transaction inspection via debugger
ad hoc reports
troubleshooting production
Concurrency Control
pray (MS Access)
table locking (MyISAM)
row locking (InnoDB)
MVCC (PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server)

8. this is changing!
Administration Overhead
shared environments
local environment
MariaDB is super simple
PostgreSQL is pretty easy
Oracle, SQL Server licensing
SQL Server is Windows-Only
Monetary Cost
Oracle will cost you your firstborn
SQL Server is expensive, but has free Express Edition
small (<10gb) databases only
MariaDB and PostgreSQL are free

9. the last nail for MariaDB
because Node doesn't help in-DB
Elephants Are Cool?
Same roots as SQL Server (and Sybase)
Heroku keeps adding features
clustering/replication
upsert
JSON (and hstore) for "loose" models
plv8
inheritance
Elephants Aren't Cool?
Existing knowledge/experience
Cost isn't a differentiator
Downtime for upgrades is fine
"NoSQL" use cases
Facebook
key-value caching
unstructured data
why not both?

10. * I'm going to read this one verbatim. Sorry.
Elephants Are Cool!
ACID DDL
concurrency control
query tuning
price
ancestry
open source contributions
flexibility
Soapbox *
If you're not using version control, start. Before you write another line of
code.
If you write everything yourself, stop. Leverage libraries available to you.
Learn about your tools. They're all far more powerful than you believe.

11. Barney Boisvert
@barneyb
http://programmerluddite.com
me@barneyb.com