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From: EuAndreh <eu@euandre.org>
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2025 02:17:12 -0300
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-= The database I wish I had
-:categories: mediator
-:updatedat: 2020-09-03
-
-:empty:
-:values-talk: https://vimeo.com/230142234
-:haskell-startup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR3Jirqk6W8
-
-I watched the talk "{values-talk}[Platform as a Reflection of Values: Joyent,
-Node.js and beyond]" by Bryan Cantrill, and I think he was able to put into
-words something I already felt for some time: if there's no piece of software
-out there that reflects your values, it's time for you to build that
-software{empty}footnote:talk-time[
-  At the very end, at time 29:49.  When talking about the draft of this article
-  with a friend, he noted that Bryan O'Sullivan (a different Bryan) says a
-  similar thing on his talk "{haskell-startup}[Running a startup on Haskell]",
-  at time 4:15.
-].
-
-I kind of agree with what he said, because this is already happening to me.  I
-long for a database with a certain set of values, and for a few years I was just
-waiting for someone to finally write it.  After watching his talk, Bryan is
-saying to me: "time to stop waiting, and start writing it yourself".
-
-So let me try to give an overview of such database, and go over its values.
-
-== Overview
-
-I want a database that allows me to create decentralized client-side
-applications that can sync data.
-
-The best one-line description I can give right now is:
-
-____
-It's sort of like PouchDB, Git, Datomic, SQLite and Mentat.
-____
-
-A more descriptive version could be:
-
-____
-An embedded, immutable, syncable relational database.
-____
-
-Let's go over what I mean by each of those aspects one by one.
-
-=== Embedded
-
-:sqlite: https://sqlite.org/index.html
-:sqlite-whentouse: https://sqlite.org/whentouse.html
-:pouchdb: https://pouchdb.com/
-:couchdb: https://couchdb.apache.org/
-:mentat: https://github.com/mozilla/mentat
-:pouchdb-adapters: https://pouchdb.com/adapters.html
-:datomic-storage-services: https://docs.datomic.com/on-prem/storage.html
-:sqlite-amalgamation: https://www.sqlite.org/amalgamation.html
-:pointed-out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24338881
-
-I think the server-side database landscape is diverse and mature enough for my
-needs (even though I end up choosing SQLite most of the time), and what I'm
-after is a database to be embedded on client-side applications itself, be it
-desktop, browser, mobile, _etc._
-
-The purpose of such database is not to keep some local cache of data in case of
-lost connectivity: we have good solutions for that already.  It should serve as
-the source of truth, and allow the application to work on top of it.
-
-{sqlite}[*SQLite*] is a great example of that: it is a very powerful relational
-database that runs {sqlite-whentouse}[almost anywhere].  What I miss from it
-that SQLite doesn't provide is the ability to run it on the browser: even though
-you could compile it to WebAssembly, [line-through]#it assumes a POSIX
-filesystem that would have to be
-emulated#{empty}footnote:posix-sqlite[
-  It was {pointed-out}[pointed out to me] that SQLite doesn't assume the
-  existence of a POSIX filesystem, as I wrongly stated. Thanks for the
-  correction.
-pass:[</p><p>]
-  This makes me consider it as a storage backend all by itself. I initially
-  considered having an SQLite storage backend as one implementation of the POSIX
-  filesystem storage API that I mentioned. My goal was to rely on it so I could
-  validate the correctness of the actual implementation, given SQLite's
-  robustness.
-pass:[</p><p>]
-  However it may even better to just use SQLite, and get an ACID backend without
-  recreating a big part of SQLite from scratch. In fact, both Datomic and
-  PouchDB didn't create an storage backend for themselves, they just plugged on
-  what already existed and already worked. I'm beginning to think that it would
-  be wiser to just do the same, and drop entirely the from scratch
-  implementation that I mentioned.
-pass:[</p><p>]
-  That's not to say that adding an IndexedDB compatibility layer to SQLite would
-  be enough to make it fit the other requirements I mention on this page. SQLite
-  still is an implementation of a update-in-place, SQL, table-oriented database.
-  It is probably true that cherry-picking the relevant parts of SQLite (like
-  storage access, consistency, crash recovery, parser generator, *etc.*) and
-  leaving out the unwanted parts (SQL, tables, threading, *etc.*) would be
-  better than including the full SQLite stack, that's simply an optimization.
-  Both could even coexist, if desired.
-pass:[</p><p>]
-  SQLite would have to be treated similarly to how Datomic treats SQL databases:
-  instead of having a table for each entities, spread attributes over the
-  tables, *etc.*, it treats SQL databases as a key-value storage so it doesn't
-  have to re-implement interacting with the disk that other databases do well.
-pass:[</p><p>]
-  The tables would contain blocks of binary data, so there isn't a difference on
-  how the SQLite storage backend behaves and how the IndexedDB storage backend
-  behaves, much like how Datomic works the same regardless of the storage
-  backend, same for PouchDB.
-pass:[</p><p>]
-  I welcome corrections on what I said above, too.
-].
-
-{pouchdb}[*PouchDB*] is another great example: it's a full reimplementation of
-{couchdb}[CouchDB] that targets JavaScript environments, mainly the browser and
-Node.js.  However I want a tool that can be deployed anywhere, and not limit its
-applications to places that already have a JavaScript runtime environment, or
-force the developer to bundle a JavaScript runtime environment with their
-application.  This is true for GTK+ applications, command line programs, Android
-apps, _etc._
-
-{mentat}[*Mentat*] was an interesting project, but its reliance on SQLite makes
-it inherit most of the downsides (and benefits too) of SQLite itself.
-
-Having such a requirement imposes a different approach to storage: we have to
-decouple the knowledge about the intricacies of storage from the usage of
-storage itself, so that a module (say query processing) can access storage
-through an API without needing to know about its implementation.  This allows
-the database to target a POSIX filesystems storage API and an IndexedDB storage
-API, and make the rest of the code agnostic about storage.  PouchDB has such
-mechanism (called {pouchdb-adapters}[adapters]) and Datomic has them too (called
-{datomic-storage-services}[storage services]).
-
-This would allow the database to adapt to where it is embedded: when targeting
-the browser the IndexedDB storage API would provide the persistence layer that
-the database requires, and similarly the POSIX filesystem storage API would
-provide the persistence layer when targeting POSIX systems (like desktops,
-mobile, _etc._).
-
-But there's also an extra restriction that comes from by being embedded: it
-needs to provide and embeddable artifact, most likely a binary library object
-that exposes a C compatible FFI, similar to {sqlite-amalgamation}[how SQLite
-does].  Bundling a full runtime environment is possible, but doesn't make it a
-compelling solution for embedding.  This rules out most languages, and leaves
-us with C, Rust, Zig, and similar options that can target POSIX systems and
-WebAssembly.
-
-=== Immutable
-
-:datomic: https://www.datomic.com/
-:day-of-datomic: https://vimeo.com/116315075
-:git: https://git-scm.com/
-:sqlite-limits: https://sqlite.org/limits.html
-:datomic-no-history: https://docs.datomic.com/cloud/best.html#nohistory-for-high-churn
-
-Being immutable means that only new information is added, no in-place update
-ever happens, and nothing is ever deleted.
-
-Having an immutable database presents us with similar trade-offs found in
-persistent data structures, like lack of coordination when doing reads, caches
-being always coherent, and more usage of space.
-
-{datomic}[*Datomic*] is the go to database example of this: it will only add
-information (datoms) and allows you to query them in a multitude of ways.
-Stuart Halloway calls it "accumulate-only" over
-"append-only"{empty}footnote:accumulate-only[
-  Video "{day-of-datomic}[Day of Datomic Part 2]" on Datomic's information
-  model, at time 12:28.
-]:
-
-____
-It's accumulate-only, it is not append-only.  So append-only, most people when
-they say that they're implying something physical about what happens.
-____
-
-Also a database can be append-only and overwrite existing information with new
-information, by doing clean-ups of "stale" data.  I prefer to adopt the
-"accumulate-only" naming and approach.
-
-{git}[*Git*] is another example of this: new commits are always added on top of
-the previous data, and it grows by adding commits instead of replacing existing
-ones.
-
-Git repositories can only grow in size, and that is not only an acceptable
-condition, but also one of the reasons to use it.
-
-All this means that no in-place updates happens on data, and the database will
-be much more concerned about how compact and efficiently it stores data than how
-fast it does writes to disk.  Being embedded, the storage limitation is either
-a) how much storage the device has or b) how much storage was designed for the
-application to consume.  So even though the database could theoretically operate
-with hundreds of TBs, a browser page or mobile application wouldn't have access
-to this amount of storage.  SQLite even {sqlite-limits}[says] that it does
-support approximately 280 TBs of data, but those limits are untested.
-
-The upside of keeping everything is that you can have historical views of your
-data, which is very powerful.  This also means that applications should turn
-this off when not
-relevant{empty}footnote:no-history[
-  Similar to {datomic-no-history}[Datomic's `:db/noHistory`].
-].
-
-=== Syncable
-
-:3-way-merge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merge_(version_control)
-:git-remote-gcrypt: https://spwhitton.name/tech/code/git-remote-gcrypt/
-
-This is a frequent topic when talking about offline-first solutions.  When
-building applications that:
-
-* can fully work offline,
-* stores data,
-* propagates that data to other application instances,
-
-then you'll need a conflict resolution strategy to handle all the situations
-where different application instances disagree.  Those application instances
-could be a desktop and a browser version of the same application, or the same
-mobile app in different devices.
-
-A three-way merge seems to be the best approach, on top of which you could add
-application specific conflict resolution functions, like:
-
-* pick the change with higher timestamp;
-* if one change is a delete, pick it;
-* present the diff on the screen and allow the user to merge them.
-
-Some databases try to make this "easy", by choosing a strategy for you, but I've
-found that different applications require different conflict resolution
-strategies.  Instead, the database should leave this up to the user to decide,
-and provide tools for them to do it.
-
-{3-way-merge}[*Three-way merges in version control*] are the best example,
-performing automatic merges when possible and asking the user to resolve
-conflicts when they appear.
-
-The unit of conflict for a version control system is a line of text.  The
-database equivalent would probably be a single attribute, not a full entity or a
-full row.
-
-Making all the conflict resolution logic be local should allow the database to
-have encrypted remotes similar to how {git-remote-gcrypt}[git-remote-gcrypt]
-adds this functionality to Git.  This would enable users to sync the application
-data across devices using an untrusted intermediary.
-
-=== Relational
-
-:datomic-datalog: https://docs.datomic.com/on-prem/query.html
-:datomic-model: https://docs.datomic.com/cloud/whatis/data-model.html#datoms
-
-I want the power of relational queries on the client applications.
-
-Most of the arguments against traditional table-oriented relational databases
-are related to write performance, but those don't apply here.  The bottlenecks
-for client applications usually aren't write throughput.  Nobody is interested
-in differentiating between 1 MB/s or 10 MB/s when you're limited to 500 MB
-total.
-
-The relational model of the database could either be based on SQL and tables
-like in SQLite, or maybe {datomic-datalog}[datalog] and {datomic-model}[datoms]
-like in Datomic.
-
-== From aspects to values
-
-Now let's try to translate the aspects above into values, as suggested by Bryan
-Cantrill.
-
-=== Portability
-
-Being able to target so many different platforms is a bold goal, and the
-embedded nature of the database demands portability to be a core value.
-
-=== Integrity
-
-When the local database becomes the source of truth of the application, it must
-provide consistency guarantees that enables applications to rely on it.
-
-=== Expressiveness
-
-The database should empower applications to slice and dice the data in any way
-it wants to.
-
-== Next steps
-
-Since I can't find any database that fits these requirements, I've finally come
-to terms with doing it myself.
-
-It's probably going to take me a few years to do it, and making it portable
-between POSIX and IndexedDB will probably be the biggest challenge.  I got
-myself a few books on databases to start.
-
-I wonder if I'll ever be able to get this done.
-
-== External links
-
-:reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ijwz5b/the_database_i_wish_i_had/
-:lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/m9vkg4/database_i_wish_i_had
-:hn: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24337244
-:list: https://lists.sr.ht/~euandreh/public-inbox/%3C010101744a592b75-1dce9281-f0b8-4226-9d50-fd2c7901fa72-000000%40us-west-2.amazonses.com%3E
-
-See discussions on {reddit}[Reddit], {lobsters}[lobsters], {hn}[HN] and {list}[a
-lengthy email exchange].
-- 
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