The Database Doctor
Musing about Databases

Tag: databases

Cover image for Joins are NOT Expensive! - Part 1: Raw Reading
Joins are NOT Expensive! - Part 1: Raw Reading

Reading Time: 12 min, Date: 2025-07-23

When talking about Data Lakes and how people access them - we must address some of the misconceptions that made them popular in the first place. One of the largest misconceptions is are I...

Cover image for Iceberg, The Right Idea - The Wrong Spec - Part 2 of 2: The Spec
Iceberg, The Right Idea - The Wrong Spec - Part 2 of 2: The Spec

Reading Time: 21 min, Date: 2025-07-10

Let us finally look at what is so wrong with the Iceberg spec and why this simply isn't a serious attempt at solving the metadata problem of large Data Lakes. In the first part of this I took...

Cover image for Iceberg, The Right Idea - The Wrong Spec - Part 1 of 2: History
Iceberg, The Right Idea - The Wrong Spec - Part 1 of 2: History

Reading Time: 17 min, Date: 2025-07-06

Iceberg: The great unifying vision finally allowing us to escape the vendor lock-in of our database engines. One table and metadata format to find them ... And in the darkness bind I the...

Cover image for Why are Databases so Hard to Make? Part 4 - Digging up Graves
Why are Databases so Hard to Make? Part 4 - Digging up Graves

Reading Time: 9 min, Date: 2024-10-04

In my last post about high speed DML, I talked how it is possible to modify tables at the kind of speeds that a modern SSD can deliver. I sketched an outline of an algorithm that can easily us...

Cover image for Why are Databases so Hard to Make? Part 3 - High Speed DML
Why are Databases so Hard to Make? Part 3 - High Speed DML

Reading Time: 14 min, Date: 2024-09-24

After a brief intermezzo about testing (read about my thoughts here: Testing is Hard and we often use the wrong Incentives) - it is time to continue our journey together to where we will A...