My desktop at work is a Windows machine. Why? Because it gives me what I need — shell access to servers so I can do real work on the machines, a text editor, an e-mail client and a web browser. That’s really all I need to do my job. Sure, I could put in for a Macintosh or install a Unix variant. But if it gives me what I want, why would I spend all that work changing things around, just to ultimately get the same requirements — shell, web browser, text editor, e-mail client….????
I love MySQL, it’s a great database. But in order to meet its tenets, it has sacrificed features. When database religious wars start, it comes down to “MySQL stinks because it does not have the features,” or, nowadays, “It didn’t have [x feature] for a long time.” When that happens, my question is always, “If MySQL is so bad, why do so many people use it?”
Because it gives them the most important feature — SPEED. Speed is the #1 top priority in embedded databases, web applications and most desktop applications. (Am I missing a use of a database?) Companies will pay through the nose for training and licenses if it means their customers are happy because their product is speedy. (Meanwhile, MySQL is offering it very affordably, so folks do not have to pay through the nose.)
So to the folks who argue that MySQL stinks — I’ll agree, if you are talking about being feature-rich. However, MySQL has been growing in that department, so the argument is only relevant if you want to do a pivot table, or index a calculated field in a VIEW, or something complex like that. Perhaps MySQL isn’t appropriate for, say, a data warehouse. SQL Server is a better choice for that, as it has reporting modules and analysis wizards and all sorts of stuff.
MySQL is not perfect for everything, and it is not lousy for everything. But if you look at what most people need, it is speed. MySQL delivers that.
http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/press-release/release_2006_35.html
MySQL won a contest, and it is proclaimed the fastest database.
I am happy, but I am not surprised. The basic tenets of MySQL are “fast, easy-to-use and bug-free”.
It is nice to know MySQL is actually meeting their goals. ‘Bug-free’ is not totally true, of course, but MySQL’s features are well-implemented. And being the fastest database is an achievement, even if it was one that was planned for.
We all know MySQL is the fastest. That’s why so many organizations have used it, even during the time when MyISAM was the only widely used storage engine. Before transactions, before fulltext indexing, before views and stored procedures and triggers, MySQL was widely used. A developer should not have to write transaction code in a programming language, but many organizations were happy to use bad coding techniques and zoom past their competitors with a speedy site.
Now the rest of the world knows that MySQL is the fastest. And, of course, MySQL is fast, easy-to-use, affordable AND full-featured. MySQL is doing a good job of marketing their new features, but another thing they should do is find out all the outdated information on websites and educate folks, that the arguments against MySQL are fewer and fewer as time goes on.
My desktop at work is a Windows machine. Why? Because it gives me what I need — shell access to servers so I can do real work on the machines, a text editor, an e-mail client and a web browser. That’s really all I need to do my job. Sure, I could put in for a Macintosh or install a Unix variant. But if it gives me what I want, why would I spend all that work changing things around, just to ultimately get the same requirements — shell, web browser, text editor, e-mail client….????
I love MySQL, it’s a great database. But in order to meet its tenets, it has sacrificed features. When database religious wars start, it comes down to “MySQL stinks because it does not have the features,” or, nowadays, “It didn’t have [x feature] for a long time.” When that happens, my question is always, “If MySQL is so bad, why do so many people use it?”
Because it gives them the most important feature — SPEED. Speed is the #1 top priority in embedded databases, web applications and most desktop applications. (Am I missing a use of a database?) Companies will pay through the nose for training and licenses if it means their customers are happy because their product is speedy. (Meanwhile, MySQL is offering it very affordably, so folks do not have to pay through the nose.)
So to the folks who argue that MySQL stinks — I’ll agree, if you are talking about being feature-rich. However, MySQL has been growing in that department, so the argument is only relevant if you want to do a pivot table, or index a calculated field in a VIEW, or something complex like that. Perhaps MySQL isn’t appropriate for, say, a data warehouse. SQL Server is a better choice for that, as it has reporting modules and analysis wizards and all sorts of stuff.
MySQL is not perfect for everything, and it is not lousy for everything. But if you look at what most people need, it is speed. MySQL delivers that.
http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/press-release/release_2006_35.html
MySQL won a contest, and it is proclaimed the fastest database.
I am happy, but I am not surprised. The basic tenets of MySQL are “fast, easy-to-use and bug-free”.
It is nice to know MySQL is actually meeting their goals. ‘Bug-free’ is not totally true, of course, but MySQL’s features are well-implemented. And being the fastest database is an achievement, even if it was one that was planned for.
We all know MySQL is the fastest. That’s why so many organizations have used it, even during the time when MyISAM was the only widely used storage engine. Before transactions, before fulltext indexing, before views and stored procedures and triggers, MySQL was widely used. A developer should not have to write transaction code in a programming language, but many organizations were happy to use bad coding techniques and zoom past their competitors with a speedy site.
Now the rest of the world knows that MySQL is the fastest. And, of course, MySQL is fast, easy-to-use, affordable AND full-featured. MySQL is doing a good job of marketing their new features, but another thing they should do is find out all the outdated information on websites and educate folks, that the arguments against MySQL are fewer and fewer as time goes on.
August 23rd was the first proposed date for DBA Day since, apparently, DBAs were left out of the Sysadmin Day this year — http://www.sysadminday.com/ explicitly mentioned DBAs last year, but not this year.
I do not necessarily take it as a snub; I would rather have people treating me with respect all year round than have cake on one day. To be fair, my company has a big cake monthly for all the birthdays in the month, and my coworkers and I have mutual respect for each other.
However, I will happily partake in a celebration of me, or a celebration of what I do. So even though http://www.dbaday.com/ remains undefined, I suggest that people do something nice for their DBAs. But not something token, make it genuine. It does not even have to be monetary, or tangible. Tell your DBA today a specific instance that you can think of where s/he made a positive difference.
I have folders called “smiley” — in my work e-mail, my personal e-mail and in my filing cabinet. In those folders I put words of praise, or thank-yous, or anything that makes me smile, feel respected and loved, etc. So give your DBA a “smiley” today, on DBA day.
I got a smiley from the sysadmin yesterday, so I’ll share it here:
[boss has] been impressed
and i know he never mentions it to you
but you’ve allowed me to not have to worry about the db side in all this
and thats a major component
(it was from IM and he was sick yesterday, hence the capitalization/spelling not being perfect).
August 23rd was the first proposed date for DBA Day since, apparently, DBAs were left out of the Sysadmin Day this year — http://www.sysadminday.com/ explicitly mentioned DBAs last year, but not this year.
I do not necessarily take it as a snub; I would rather have people treating me with respect all year round than have cake on one day. To be fair, my company has a big cake monthly for all the birthdays in the month, and my coworkers and I have mutual respect for each other.
However, I will happily partake in a celebration of me, or a celebration of what I do. So even though http://www.dbaday.com/ remains undefined, I suggest that people do something nice for their DBAs. But not something token, make it genuine. It does not even have to be monetary, or tangible. Tell your DBA today a specific instance that you can think of where s/he made a positive difference.
I have folders called “smiley” — in my work e-mail, my personal e-mail and in my filing cabinet. In those folders I put words of praise, or thank-yous, or anything that makes me smile, feel respected and loved, etc. So give your DBA a “smiley” today, on DBA day.
I got a smiley from the sysadmin yesterday, so I’ll share it here:
[boss has] been impressed
and i know he never mentions it to you
but you’ve allowed me to not have to worry about the db side in all this
and thats a major component
(it was from IM and he was sick yesterday, hence the capitalization/spelling not being perfect).
(also entitled, “Who Put the J in lam-a-lam-a-LAMJ?”)
So, I have started to read Mysql Stored Procedures by Guy Harrison with Steven Feuerstein — a fabulous book already! One thing that caught my attention was this (which you can see in the Preface, available through Safari):
MySQL is the dominant open source database management system: it is being used increasingly to build very significant applications based on the LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP/Perl/Python) and LAMJ (Linux-Apache-MySQL-JBoss) open source stacks, and it is, more and more, being deployed wherever a high-performance, reliable, relational database is required.
Now, I figured that the “J” in “LAMJ” stood for “Java”, given that the P stands for a programming language beginning with “P”. It does not stand for “CGI”, a specific type of web programming [popularized? created? by Perl], even though it usually means CGI, because of Apache. Obviously, there are applets and servlets and JavaBeans and all sorts of ways to use Java . . .
JBoss is an architecture, which the other 3 (Linux, Apache and MySQL) all are as well. I guess what bothers me is that the “P” stands for a language, not an architecture, so I feel like the “J” should too. And what if we use Resin, Websphere or Wenlogic? Does it become LAMR or LAMW? Can we still call it LAMJ?
So I went searching, and I did not have to look a long time before finding out that nobody really knows, and folks just use what they want. Because it’s internally inconsistent and a good example, I use Continuent as an example. This is not anything negative toward Continuent (in fact, if their marketing is not so great, perhaps it is because they are putting the bulk of their money to technology… 🙂 )
Continuent using “Java”
Continuent uses “JBoss/J2EE”
Continuent uses “JSP/J2EE”
They use this last one in most places; perhaps being partnered with JBoss is why they use it on their “Products” site?
But then why does the Stored Procedures book use “JBoss”?
(also entitled, “Who Put the J in lam-a-lam-a-LAMJ?”)
So, I have started to read Mysql Stored Procedures by Guy Harrison with Steven Feuerstein — a fabulous book already! One thing that caught my attention was this (which you can see in the Preface, available through Safari):
MySQL is the dominant open source database management system: it is being used increasingly to build very significant applications based on the LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP/Perl/Python) and LAMJ (Linux-Apache-MySQL-JBoss) open source stacks, and it is, more and more, being deployed wherever a high-performance, reliable, relational database is required.
Now, I figured that the “J” in “LAMJ” stood for “Java”, given that the P stands for a programming language beginning with “P”. It does not stand for “CGI”, a specific type of web programming [popularized? created? by Perl], even though it usually means CGI, because of Apache. Obviously, there are applets and servlets and JavaBeans and all sorts of ways to use Java . . .
JBoss is an architecture, which the other 3 (Linux, Apache and MySQL) all are as well. I guess what bothers me is that the “P” stands for a language, not an architecture, so I feel like the “J” should too. And what if we use Resin, Websphere or Wenlogic? Does it become LAMR or LAMW? Can we still call it LAMJ?
So I went searching, and I did not have to look a long time before finding out that nobody really knows, and folks just use what they want. Because it’s internally inconsistent and a good example, I use Continuent as an example. This is not anything negative toward Continuent (in fact, if their marketing is not so great, perhaps it is because they are putting the bulk of their money to technology… 🙂 )
Continuent using “Java”
Continuent uses “JBoss/J2EE”
Continuent uses “JSP/J2EE”
They use this last one in most places; perhaps being partnered with JBoss is why they use it on their “Products” site?
But then why does the Stored Procedures book use “JBoss”?
Most developers are used to programming in procedural or object-oriented languages. SQL, as a declarative language, is quite different. In declarative languages like SQL, you program what you want the result to be, not the procedure to get it. For instance, “give me all the people with the first name starting with the letter S from a certain table.” Unlike procedural programming (or even methods in object-oriented languages), you do not say how to get the information. This is, I believe, why many developers want to give the query optimizer “hints” on how to do its job.
That being said, I will list the top 8 Basic SQL Practices I live by, and attempt to enforce. Please feel free to comment adding your own (or post your own, linking back here).
In no particular order:
1) Always use explicit joins. If I mean INNER JOIN, then I use INNER JOIN. No use of just plain “JOIN”. Never, ever, ever use a comma join — I consider that a mistake. If I explicitly state “CROSS JOIN” then I know I have consciously made that decision. Also, keep join conditions in an ON or USING clause; they should not go in the WHERE clause. I also put my join conditions in parentheses; for whatever reason, I find:
ON (foo=bar AND baz=bop) WHERE a=b
is easier to see that the join condition contains 2 conditions than
ON foo=bar AND baz=bop WHERE a=b
2) Always define field names. No using SELECT * or INSERT INTO table VALUES. It’s a pain, and more so of a pain given that mysqldump does not specify INSERT fields. However, if it’s important enough to save in a text file (ie, it’s seed data or a migration script) then it gets explicit field names.
3) Always use the database server’s timestamp. Web servers may have disparate times. Reports may come from different servers than the inserted data.
4) Store IPs as integers with INET_ATON and retrieve them with INET_NTOA.
5) When doing reports, the network traffic is usually the biggest bottleneck. If you’re going to receive information, it’s better to receive in chunks, which will likely be larger than a logical piece. For instance, state reporting — instead of making 50 connections for states in the US, get them all at once. If the dataset is very large and folks do not want to stare at a blank page while the report is loading, use paging with LIMIT to grab, say, 1000 entries at a time and display them on the screen so people can start looking at the data while the rest is being grabbed.
6) Running a query in a loop is usually a bad idea. If you are executing the same query with different data, consider building a query string using UNION and executing it at the end of the loop, so you can execute multiple queries with only one trip across the network to the database.
7) Do not be afraid of JOINs. They are not necessarily resource intensive, given good indexing. Most of the time a denormalized schema without a join ends up being worse than a normalized one using a join. When there is redundant data, ensuring data integrity takes up more cycles than providing a framework for data integrity in the first place.
8) Limit the use of correlated subqueries; often they can be replaced with a JOIN.
(I also try to put SQL commands in capital letters to help me easily spot fields and variables I use).
Most developers are used to programming in procedural or object-oriented languages. SQL, as a declarative language, is quite different. In declarative languages like SQL, you program what you want the result to be, not the procedure to get it. For instance, “give me all the people with the first name starting with the letter S from a certain table.” Unlike procedural programming (or even methods in object-oriented languages), you do not say how to get the information. This is, I believe, why many developers want to give the query optimizer “hints” on how to do its job.
That being said, I will list the top 8 Basic SQL Practices I live by, and attempt to enforce. Please feel free to comment adding your own (or post your own, linking back here).
In no particular order:
1) Always use explicit joins. If I mean INNER JOIN, then I use INNER JOIN. No use of just plain “JOIN”. Never, ever, ever use a comma join — I consider that a mistake. If I explicitly state “CROSS JOIN” then I know I have consciously made that decision. Also, keep join conditions in an ON or USING clause; they should not go in the WHERE clause. I also put my join conditions in parentheses; for whatever reason, I find:
ON (foo=bar AND baz=bop) WHERE a=b
is easier to see that the join condition contains 2 conditions than
ON foo=bar AND baz=bop WHERE a=b
2) Always define field names. No using SELECT * or INSERT INTO table VALUES. It’s a pain, and more so of a pain given that mysqldump does not specify INSERT fields. However, if it’s important enough to save in a text file (ie, it’s seed data or a migration script) then it gets explicit field names.
3) Always use the database server’s timestamp. Web servers may have disparate times. Reports may come from different servers than the inserted data.
4) Store IPs as integers with INET_ATON and retrieve them with INET_NTOA.
5) When doing reports, the network traffic is usually the biggest bottleneck. If you’re going to receive information, it’s better to receive in chunks, which will likely be larger than a logical piece. For instance, state reporting — instead of making 50 connections for states in the US, get them all at once. If the dataset is very large and folks do not want to stare at a blank page while the report is loading, use paging with LIMIT to grab, say, 1000 entries at a time and display them on the screen so people can start looking at the data while the rest is being grabbed.
6) Running a query in a loop is usually a bad idea. If you are executing the same query with different data, consider building a query string using UNION and executing it at the end of the loop, so you can execute multiple queries with only one trip across the network to the database.
7) Do not be afraid of JOINs. They are not necessarily resource intensive, given good indexing. Most of the time a denormalized schema without a join ends up being worse than a normalized one using a join. When there is redundant data, ensuring data integrity takes up more cycles than providing a framework for data integrity in the first place.
8) Limit the use of correlated subqueries; often they can be replaced with a JOIN.
(I also try to put SQL commands in capital letters to help me easily spot fields and variables I use).
Back at the MySQL Users Conference, I was talking to Monty about a good PHP* interface to MySQL that would go through a database, and make pages to be able to search, update and add new fields in the database. He mentioned Unireg, and I wrote it down, but only got to checking out what that was recently.
As far as I can tell from here, here, here and here:
- Unireg started as a curses-based interface to an SQL database.
- Unireg turned into MySQL — that is, libraries and such from Unireg were used in MySQL, and Unireg was no longer developed
- Unireg was similar to the MySQL Query Browser or any number of administration tools, but it also generated reports
Of course, I could be misunderstanding the information on these pages, or they could be wrong, so feel free to correct me…..
It’s not quite what I was talking about, but it’s an interesting history lesson. Even more interesting is how functionality that [I gather] used to be in Unireg took a long time to get into MySQL, and in the case of reporting, still is not in there.
I used PHPCodeGenie for the one system I did not hand-code, and even that was painful, with lots of code. I did a bit more research, and found lots of stuff that have huge learning curves, and I have not overcome that obstacle yet.
So what is your favorite program to automatically generate a database ui? Specifically, it should:
- Generate web pages in PHP*,
- Automatically connect to the database,
- Allow for easy specification of join tables based on (a) field(s),
- Allow for easy selecting of all, none, or some table fields,
- Not require that fields in the join condition be shown.
- Allow the “view”, “edit” and “add” pages to show different fields
I do not even need the application to have authentication, as for what I am doing I do not need ACLs and a .htaccess file will suffice.
* or really, any lightweight structure — Perl would be OK, Java might be OK if it did not middleware like JBoss or Resin — basically anything I could stick on a web server to connect to a database.
Back at the MySQL Users Conference, I was talking to Monty about a good PHP* interface to MySQL that would go through a database, and make pages to be able to search, update and add new fields in the database. He mentioned Unireg, and I wrote it down, but only got to checking out what that was recently.
As far as I can tell from here, here, here and here:
- Unireg started as a curses-based interface to an SQL database.
- Unireg turned into MySQL — that is, libraries and such from Unireg were used in MySQL, and Unireg was no longer developed
- Unireg was similar to the MySQL Query Browser or any number of administration tools, but it also generated reports
Of course, I could be misunderstanding the information on these pages, or they could be wrong, so feel free to correct me…..
It’s not quite what I was talking about, but it’s an interesting history lesson. Even more interesting is how functionality that [I gather] used to be in Unireg took a long time to get into MySQL, and in the case of reporting, still is not in there.
I used PHPCodeGenie for the one system I did not hand-code, and even that was painful, with lots of code. I did a bit more research, and found lots of stuff that have huge learning curves, and I have not overcome that obstacle yet.
So what is your favorite program to automatically generate a database ui? Specifically, it should:
- Generate web pages in PHP*,
- Automatically connect to the database,
- Allow for easy specification of join tables based on (a) field(s),
- Allow for easy selecting of all, none, or some table fields,
- Not require that fields in the join condition be shown.
- Allow the “view”, “edit” and “add” pages to show different fields
I do not even need the application to have authentication, as for what I am doing I do not need ACLs and a .htaccess file will suffice.
* or really, any lightweight structure — Perl would be OK, Java might be OK if it did not middleware like JBoss or Resin — basically anything I could stick on a web server to connect to a database.
http://www.artfulsoftware.com has a “Common Queries” page, which I find rather useful. I hadn’t realized its history, as described on the homepage:
Our collection of common MySQL queries outgrew Chapter 9, and is still growing, so we turned it into a PHP page driven from a MySQL table.
One day, I clicked on the page and got the dreaded “blank” PHP page.
This gets into one of the fundamental flaws I find with “semi-dynamic data” (my terminology for it) — it is not completely dynamic data, because it gets updated by humans, and it is deterministic*, so it does not need a completely dynamic page.
Part of the updating process could be a “generate the web page” script, that runs what the actual page is now, but stores the result as an HTML page. In this way, if 1000 users want the same page, there are *no* database queries done. After all, it only needs to change when content is uploaded, which isn’t very often at all.
The “generation” script could easily be a part of a web form that uploads content, or it could be a separate form/script run after a batch of changes is done, so multiple changes do not require generating pages that will just be written over after the next update in a minute or so. As well, it could write to a temporary file, and the very last script action would move the temporary file to the right place. In this way, a generation script that takes a long time to finish would not be partially overwritten by another, simultaneous generation script.
I have used this technique in content management systems — particularly with templates, as I’ve found you can separate different content items (such as menus) and “break apart” a template into pieces, and with about an hour you can support a new template into an existing system, and have a user compare templates to see which they’d rather use, given their own content.
I have also used this technique with a listing of organizations around the world. All the listings (3,000) were stored in a database. From this, I ran a weekly (but it would be easy to run it hourly or daily) script that made “browse by” pages, categorizing all of the resources by first letter of their name as well as by their area, province/state and country. The script, which took a full 10 minutes due to poor optimization, made an overall browsing page, 26 “by letter” pages, one page for each country, and a directory with one page for each state/province and area for each country. It also generated the page and compared it to the existing page, and only overwrote the page when they differed (and then put a “last updated on:” message at the end).
Folks searching could still get truly dynamic pages, but I cut down on needless direct database calls to find out which organizations were in “England”, and more needless database calls to find out which organizations were in the “Greater London” area, when those pages changes rather rarely.
This could also be useful for large sites, such as photo sharing galleries. Sites that allow comments may or may not see a performance gain — for each new comment, generating the page again may not be the best solution. However, if there’s at least one page hit for each database write, then using this method will have better performance.
* an example of a nondeterministic page is one that changes based on the time, such as “show me all activity that has happened today [up until this moment]” because it may change from second to second.
http://www.artfulsoftware.com has a “Common Queries” page, which I find rather useful. I hadn’t realized its history, as described on the homepage:
Our collection of common MySQL queries outgrew Chapter 9, and is still growing, so we turned it into a PHP page driven from a MySQL table.
One day, I clicked on the page and got the dreaded “blank” PHP page.
This gets into one of the fundamental flaws I find with “semi-dynamic data” (my terminology for it) — it is not completely dynamic data, because it gets updated by humans, and it is deterministic*, so it does not need a completely dynamic page.
Part of the updating process could be a “generate the web page” script, that runs what the actual page is now, but stores the result as an HTML page. In this way, if 1000 users want the same page, there are *no* database queries done. After all, it only needs to change when content is uploaded, which isn’t very often at all.
The “generation” script could easily be a part of a web form that uploads content, or it could be a separate form/script run after a batch of changes is done, so multiple changes do not require generating pages that will just be written over after the next update in a minute or so. As well, it could write to a temporary file, and the very last script action would move the temporary file to the right place. In this way, a generation script that takes a long time to finish would not be partially overwritten by another, simultaneous generation script.
I have used this technique in content management systems — particularly with templates, as I’ve found you can separate different content items (such as menus) and “break apart” a template into pieces, and with about an hour you can support a new template into an existing system, and have a user compare templates to see which they’d rather use, given their own content.
I have also used this technique with a listing of organizations around the world. All the listings (3,000) were stored in a database. From this, I ran a weekly (but it would be easy to run it hourly or daily) script that made “browse by” pages, categorizing all of the resources by first letter of their name as well as by their area, province/state and country. The script, which took a full 10 minutes due to poor optimization, made an overall browsing page, 26 “by letter” pages, one page for each country, and a directory with one page for each state/province and area for each country. It also generated the page and compared it to the existing page, and only overwrote the page when they differed (and then put a “last updated on:” message at the end).
Folks searching could still get truly dynamic pages, but I cut down on needless direct database calls to find out which organizations were in “England”, and more needless database calls to find out which organizations were in the “Greater London” area, when those pages changes rather rarely.
This could also be useful for large sites, such as photo sharing galleries. Sites that allow comments may or may not see a performance gain — for each new comment, generating the page again may not be the best solution. However, if there’s at least one page hit for each database write, then using this method will have better performance.
* an example of a nondeterministic page is one that changes based on the time, such as “show me all activity that has happened today [up until this moment]” because it may change from second to second.
Since OSCON, most of my time has been focused on editing a book, which is about to be finished. As I’m getting my commutes back, I have been reading up on what I’ve missed on Planet MySQL (which I affectionately call “The ‘planet.”
Y’all are prolific!
Jeremy’s On Open Source Citizenship got me thinking about the whole movement. I think there’s still a place for proprietary software in the world, as much as folks tout that “open source is ALWAYS better, because more people see it, therefore more people can help change it.”
Whenever anyone suggests a monolithic solution, I cringe. This all ties into the patent issues that are strongly debated these days. I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about everything.
Jeremy’s article talked about how Yahoo! (as an example) couldn’t just open up all the source, because
there’d be places in the code where magic voodoo functions are called but we couldn’t really talk about what they do or how they might work. That’s called our secret sauce or “business logic” if you prefer.
So, does Yahoo! patent these functions? Should they? Why can’t the secret sauce/business logic be open? Why should parts be open and other parts closed?
I know, you’re thinking “Otherwise, how would Yahoo! make money?” Or Google, for that matter, whose search algorithms are a very huge secret. The Google NDA probably specifies that employees cannott even disclose whether or not Google even has search algorithms.
When I think open source, I tend to think everything, including the business logic, is exposed. There are some companies which would lose their business if their secrets got out. However, we know what the secret sauce is made of and yet, McDonald’s business has not suffered.
Restaurants publish cookbooks, yet they do not go out of business. Why is that?
It is because what they sell is not just the food. As Google and Yahoo do not sell their searches. Sure, the food (and searches) are what made them famous. But what keeps people flocking is that, even though they could do the same thing themselves, they need the services and resources provided. I cannot cook a hamburger on a bun with sliced pickles and onions and thousand island dressing in 5 minutes for under $3.
It would cost less per burger to make it at home, but if I just want one burger, I have to buy a package of 8 hamburger buns, ground beef by the pound, an entire jar of thousand island dressing, a whole onion, and a jar of pickles. What I’m really paying for is the person behind the counter to assemble it for me.
I use Google and Yahoo! not merely because they have good products — that is one reason, but a very small one. I use them because they give me services and resources I cannot do myself, either due to lack of expertise or just plain lack of time. Flickr works not because there is a secret to programming an image gallery on the web — it is because they offer free space and a method to upload that many people just plain do not have. Even if a geeky person like myself has photo software on her server, Flickr also provides an easy way to share albums, contact people, etc. that individual
Look at livejournal! They are a perfect example — you can download the code and install it on your own server. But most of the features require the same centralized database, so unless you want control over a *very* closed community (which can exist on livejournal.com anyway, just not having the database under your control), you would probably want to just create an account on livejournal.com, because then your “friends list” can include anyone on livejournal.com.
I use gmail as my main e-mail client; I also have a Yahoo! Mail account. I’m a geek, and I’ve helped run mail for 12,000 users at a university; I have the knowledge and expertise to run my own mail server. So why would I use these services?
Because they do everything. They run on a highly available architecture, do backups for disaster recovery, etc. If I wanted to ensure that I gave myself the quality mail service that Google and Yahoo! can deliver, it would cost lots of money and even more of my time, for just myself.
Why should I duplicate effort in this case? If I had to be completely sustainable — including growing my own food and making my own clothes — I would not even be able to spend any time on a computer, much less be a DBA, whatever. Growing food and making clothes are “open sourced” — it’s not like one couldn’t find the information on how to do this.
So the real question is, how open does a product have to be in order to be called “open source”? Google and Yahoo! are not rich because they have secrets. They are rich because they started with secrets, but I believe they could safely let their secrets out with very little loss of revenue. There’s always the possibility that some billionaire with a mean streak will invest the resources in copying what Google or Yahoo! do if the secrets were let out. But folks are drawn to innovation, not blatant copies.
I am reading “Hackers and Painters” by Paul Graham, where he mentioned that his trade secret with Viaweb was that they were using LISP. But he also notes that his partner did not think that needed to be a secret, because even if competitors knew, they’d have to change their infrastructure and have developers with a different skillset, and that would take way too much time.
There are certainly companies I have worked for, where giving away the source/algorithms/business logic/trade secrets would mean the end of their business, because they ran on modest hardware in a colo, and with their code anyone could run their business for about $1,000. In those cases, I’d say sure, close the source and hide the secrets….but when those companies grow bigger and have more established resources, as Google and Yahoo! have both done, they can open the source, show their secrets, with very little consequence.
Of course, that leads to “how do you determine when a product is ‘big enough’ to warrant giving away the secrets?”
Since OSCON, most of my time has been focused on editing a book, which is about to be finished. As I’m getting my commutes back, I have been reading up on what I’ve missed on Planet MySQL (which I affectionately call “The ‘planet.”
Y’all are prolific!
Jeremy’s On Open Source Citizenship got me thinking about the whole movement. I think there’s still a place for proprietary software in the world, as much as folks tout that “open source is ALWAYS better, because more people see it, therefore more people can help change it.”
Whenever anyone suggests a monolithic solution, I cringe. This all ties into the patent issues that are strongly debated these days. I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about everything.
Jeremy’s article talked about how Yahoo! (as an example) couldn’t just open up all the source, because
there’d be places in the code where magic voodoo functions are called but we couldn’t really talk about what they do or how they might work. That’s called our secret sauce or “business logic” if you prefer.
So, does Yahoo! patent these functions? Should they? Why can’t the secret sauce/business logic be open? Why should parts be open and other parts closed?
I know, you’re thinking “Otherwise, how would Yahoo! make money?” Or Google, for that matter, whose search algorithms are a very huge secret. The Google NDA probably specifies that employees cannott even disclose whether or not Google even has search algorithms.
When I think open source, I tend to think everything, including the business logic, is exposed. There are some companies which would lose their business if their secrets got out. However, we know what the secret sauce is made of and yet, McDonald’s business has not suffered.
Restaurants publish cookbooks, yet they do not go out of business. Why is that?
It is because what they sell is not just the food. As Google and Yahoo do not sell their searches. Sure, the food (and searches) are what made them famous. But what keeps people flocking is that, even though they could do the same thing themselves, they need the services and resources provided. I cannot cook a hamburger on a bun with sliced pickles and onions and thousand island dressing in 5 minutes for under $3.
It would cost less per burger to make it at home, but if I just want one burger, I have to buy a package of 8 hamburger buns, ground beef by the pound, an entire jar of thousand island dressing, a whole onion, and a jar of pickles. What I’m really paying for is the person behind the counter to assemble it for me.
I use Google and Yahoo! not merely because they have good products — that is one reason, but a very small one. I use them because they give me services and resources I cannot do myself, either due to lack of expertise or just plain lack of time. Flickr works not because there is a secret to programming an image gallery on the web — it is because they offer free space and a method to upload that many people just plain do not have. Even if a geeky person like myself has photo software on her server, Flickr also provides an easy way to share albums, contact people, etc. that individual
Look at livejournal! They are a perfect example — you can download the code and install it on your own server. But most of the features require the same centralized database, so unless you want control over a *very* closed community (which can exist on livejournal.com anyway, just not having the database under your control), you would probably want to just create an account on livejournal.com, because then your “friends list” can include anyone on livejournal.com.
I use gmail as my main e-mail client; I also have a Yahoo! Mail account. I’m a geek, and I’ve helped run mail for 12,000 users at a university; I have the knowledge and expertise to run my own mail server. So why would I use these services?
Because they do everything. They run on a highly available architecture, do backups for disaster recovery, etc. If I wanted to ensure that I gave myself the quality mail service that Google and Yahoo! can deliver, it would cost lots of money and even more of my time, for just myself.
Why should I duplicate effort in this case? If I had to be completely sustainable — including growing my own food and making my own clothes — I would not even be able to spend any time on a computer, much less be a DBA, whatever. Growing food and making clothes are “open sourced” — it’s not like one couldn’t find the information on how to do this.
So the real question is, how open does a product have to be in order to be called “open source”? Google and Yahoo! are not rich because they have secrets. They are rich because they started with secrets, but I believe they could safely let their secrets out with very little loss of revenue. There’s always the possibility that some billionaire with a mean streak will invest the resources in copying what Google or Yahoo! do if the secrets were let out. But folks are drawn to innovation, not blatant copies.
I am reading “Hackers and Painters” by Paul Graham, where he mentioned that his trade secret with Viaweb was that they were using LISP. But he also notes that his partner did not think that needed to be a secret, because even if competitors knew, they’d have to change their infrastructure and have developers with a different skillset, and that would take way too much time.
There are certainly companies I have worked for, where giving away the source/algorithms/business logic/trade secrets would mean the end of their business, because they ran on modest hardware in a colo, and with their code anyone could run their business for about $1,000. In those cases, I’d say sure, close the source and hide the secrets….but when those companies grow bigger and have more established resources, as Google and Yahoo! have both done, they can open the source, show their secrets, with very little consequence.
Of course, that leads to “how do you determine when a product is ‘big enough’ to warrant giving away the secrets?”
Not much more to add to the wonderful posts:
How to Kill Good Ideas
How to Come Up With Good Ideas
Supporting Ideas and Being Productive
and
Yet More Ways to Kill Great Ideas
However, while not great in quantity, I think one of the most important points has been completely left out:
Don’t have ego.
An idea is just that: an idea. Particularly when brainstorming, lots of people like to say, “Oh, that won’t work because of this,” immediately. Usually because they had an idea previous that they’re defending. Ego steps into this. If someone proposes an idea, a brainstorming meeting is not the place to play “let’s shoot this idea down as much as possible.”
Assume your co-workers are smarter than you are (even if you have evidence to the contrary); if it takes you 2 seconds to figure out why their idea won’t work, perhaps there’s something you are not thinking of. Instead of saying “that won’t work because of this,” saying “Oh, great idea, how does that get beyond this?” or even, “I thought that wouldn’t work because of this?” The latter puts you into it, instead of your co-worker.
It’s subtle, but saying “that won’t work because of this” implies that the person had no idea about “this”. Saying “how does that get beyond this?” implies that the person knows about “this” and has a way to get beyond it. Implying that your coworkers are smart rather than that they’re dumb is a great way to make a safe environment for ideas.
Indeed, saying “I thought that wouldn’t work because of this?” says, “I must be dumb because you obviously have a smart idea (you wouldn’t proposed it if it was dumb), and I can’t get beyond this limitation.” This natural curiosity rather than dismissing the idea might actually lead you to learn that yes, there is a solution to “this.”
The other option, “that won’t work because of this,” if “this” is solved, ends up with a heated response of “well, ACTUALLY, ‘this’ has been solved,” instead of the more neutral “I’m glad you asked, most people think you can’t do that because of this, but it’s been solved….”
The other side of this is “Don’t take it personally.” If someone stomps all over an idea of yours, it’s about the idea. Perhaps they do not understand the idea, or perhaps you were, indeed, wrong. People are wrong sometimes; that’s OK. Don’t take it personally.
Not much more to add to the wonderful posts:
How to Kill Good Ideas
How to Come Up With Good Ideas
Supporting Ideas and Being Productive
and
Yet More Ways to Kill Great Ideas
However, while not great in quantity, I think one of the most important points has been completely left out:
Don’t have ego.
An idea is just that: an idea. Particularly when brainstorming, lots of people like to say, “Oh, that won’t work because of this,” immediately. Usually because they had an idea previous that they’re defending. Ego steps into this. If someone proposes an idea, a brainstorming meeting is not the place to play “let’s shoot this idea down as much as possible.”
Assume your co-workers are smarter than you are (even if you have evidence to the contrary); if it takes you 2 seconds to figure out why their idea won’t work, perhaps there’s something you are not thinking of. Instead of saying “that won’t work because of this,” saying “Oh, great idea, how does that get beyond this?” or even, “I thought that wouldn’t work because of this?” The latter puts you into it, instead of your co-worker.
It’s subtle, but saying “that won’t work because of this” implies that the person had no idea about “this”. Saying “how does that get beyond this?” implies that the person knows about “this” and has a way to get beyond it. Implying that your coworkers are smart rather than that they’re dumb is a great way to make a safe environment for ideas.
Indeed, saying “I thought that wouldn’t work because of this?” says, “I must be dumb because you obviously have a smart idea (you wouldn’t proposed it if it was dumb), and I can’t get beyond this limitation.” This natural curiosity rather than dismissing the idea might actually lead you to learn that yes, there is a solution to “this.”
The other option, “that won’t work because of this,” if “this” is solved, ends up with a heated response of “well, ACTUALLY, ‘this’ has been solved,” instead of the more neutral “I’m glad you asked, most people think you can’t do that because of this, but it’s been solved….”
The other side of this is “Don’t take it personally.” If someone stomps all over an idea of yours, it’s about the idea. Perhaps they do not understand the idea, or perhaps you were, indeed, wrong. People are wrong sometimes; that’s OK. Don’t take it personally.
So, dinner tonight will start with appetizers at the Cantina restaurant at the DoubleTree Hotel. MySQL was nice enough to have an entire reception just for me…..just kidding! However, that’s where I’ll be — since I told folks to watch this space, I wanted to make sure eveyrone knew where I’d be.
Also, I’d like to point out that there’s an obvious error in an algorithm on planetmysql.com, because it lists me as the #1 top poster.
So, dinner tonight will start with appetizers at the Cantina restaurant at the DoubleTree Hotel. MySQL was nice enough to have an entire reception just for me…..just kidding! However, that’s where I’ll be — since I told folks to watch this space, I wanted to make sure eveyrone knew where I’d be.
Also, I’d like to point out that there’s an obvious error in an algorithm on planetmysql.com, because it lists me as the #1 top poster.
I will be free for dinner on Tuesday evening, July 25th, and I’d love it if you’d join me! Watch this space for details, although the update will be Tuesday, likely late afternoon.
(and of course let everyone know I’ll be doing my “So you’ve inherited a MySQL instance on unix” workshop — how a beginner can find out info/security checklist for everyone — Wednesday at 4:30 pm.)
I will be free for dinner on Tuesday evening, July 25th, and I’d love it if you’d join me! Watch this space for details, although the update will be Tuesday, likely late afternoon.
(and of course let everyone know I’ll be doing my “So you’ve inherited a MySQL instance on unix” workshop — how a beginner can find out info/security checklist for everyone — Wednesday at 4:30 pm.)