From pg's Viaweb FAQ:<p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/vwfaq.html">http://www.paulgraham.com/vwfaq.html</a><p>"What database did you use?<p>We didn't use one. We just stored everything in files. The Unix file system is pretty good at not losing your data, especially if you put the files on a Netapp.<p>It is a common mistake to think of Web-based apps as interfaces to databases. Desktop apps aren't just interfaces to databases; why should Web-based apps be any different? The hard part is not where you store the data, but what the software does.<p>While we were doing Viaweb, we took a good deal of heat from pseudo-technical people like VCs and industry analysts for not using a database-- and for using cheap Intel boxes running FreeBSD as servers. But when we were getting bought by Yahoo, we found that they also just stored everything in files-- and all their servers were also cheap Intel boxes running FreeBSD.<p>(During the Bubble, Oracle used to run ads saying that Yahoo ran on Oracle software. I found this hard to believe, so I asked around. It turned out the Yahoo accounting department used Oracle.)"
In Java, I have used Prevayler in a previous project (about 2 years ago), and I really liked it:<p><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/prevayler/">http://sourceforge.net/projects/prevayler/</a><p>The reason I'm not using it right now is because Hibernate makes OO mapping so easy and trivial that I honestly don't see the need. But it still a good solution if using a DB is an overkill.<p>I believe there's a Prevayler port for Ruby.<p>
This post is a follow on to: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=10001">http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=10001</a><p>Paul Buchheit @ startup school told us to put our heavily accessed, small data, in hash-tables kept in RAM. Paul Graham mentions viaweb used the FreeBSD fs as its database. It seems to me as if these two applications are very different, and cover a broad spectrum of requirements.<p>Is there somewhere I can read more about this subject? I mean, there is a whole industry developed around databases, they must add value... The typical response to such a query is: what are you trying to do? Well, given the two applications listed above, what would you have recommended? Me? I'd have recommended a database server. Why would you not have? How can I find out more? How do I achieve your level of enlightenment?<p>n<p>
All - I'm not posing my question properly, only chris_i and neilc seem to understand my question. A lot of people present software implementations, but the choice of an implementation is step 5, and I'm still hung up on step 2 :)<p>I'm trying to figure out how people made the decision to use that implementation. What factors were weighed? gmail makes the claim that they store a lot of information in RAM, and don't use a DB server. Any good articles about gmail's architecture?<p>thank you!
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