The Storray Engine, an excellent example of why we use databases.

I think this demonstrates nicely one of the common memes amongst the, shall we say, less reflective programmers out there - 'this is a simple problem, I can solve this easily myself' - the Bob paradox[1] in action. I think the thrill of being able to 'just get stuff done' can have a warping influence on a programmer which causes them to neglect to notice the details which makes the problem at hand a little more complicated than they imagine.<p>It's funny to see how they rationalise problems later as being entirely necessary to the problem (I've witnessed this first hand), and nothing to do with a misapprehension of the difficulty of the problem.<p>Am I the only one here who finds the dailywtf sometimes extremely depressing?!<p>[1]:<a href="http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/being-the-averagest" rel="nofollow">http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/being-the-averagest</a>

In-memory databases do make sense for some things if you can: a. easily dump data as code and b. construct good key-value maps.<p>Incidentally, doesn't HN run as a stoarray?

This is a groundbreaking implementation of a cutting edge NoSQL storage system! What is it doing on the Daily WTF? Some incompetent tech team in NYC or somewhere should be congratulating themselves for installing it.

Typical. There's enough text in the sample to ID the client, they could have been a bit more circumspect there.<p>When all you have is a hammer...<p>I think we should see this in light of the recent nosql trend though, this guy was just ahead of the curve.

Wow, this takes me back!<p>Back around '05, I inherited the enviable task of getting a "linked project scheduling system" up and running. The creator of this MS-Project-based marvel had implemented an employee database in a VB module, that not only avoided the hassles of ADO and SQL, but almost managed to do away with arrays completely! Switch/Case statements, anyone?<p>By the way, if needles and haystacks are your thing, try a Google search on Microsoft Project. Hours of fun!