Stellar
Dev tools
database version control
SHOW HN2014
325points
77comments
#41of 2,272 in 2014
Top 2%of 2014 by points
How HN took it
RoastedHalf or more of the comments are critical
6 positive, 11 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 18 critical, out of 36 comments about the project. Thread score -0.36.
Idea: 5 for, 4 againstDocs: 0 for, 7 againstExecution: 0 for, 4 againstPerformance: 0 for, 3 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Useful for quickly restoring database state between development workflows
From 2 comments
The use case which this really excites me about is automated testing from the GUI level. If the performance is good enough, this would be really useful for restoring DB state in…
killing_time on HNSuppose I'm working on a new feature branch and I run a bunch of migrations and add new data. Then I need to go make a bug fix on the master branch. Using Stellar, I could just…
michaelmior on HN
Excellent project for managing development databases
From 2 comments
I expected something related with Stellar coins. Looks like a good project, I definitely want an easy way to manage development databases.
iurisilvio on HNUnfortunate name, excellent project :)
codeoclock on HN
Objections
Name and 'git' comparison are misleading; it is not version control
From 4 comments
Why does the author compare it to Git? The functions this software performs are no where near those performed by Git. Nor it is a proper version control system.
m3h on HNTo elaborate on what this comment may be referring to. A Ripple (cryptocurrency) fork was recently released with the name of Stellar.
gexla on HNFolks might confuse this with the Stellar currency (stellar.org). You might give some emphasis in the title.
edem on HNSo it's yet another toy project with grandiose, overblown claims ("git for databases"? seriously?!) An honest update to the README would be to take the whole thing down several…
mbca on HN
Documentation lacks explanation of how it works and failure modes
From 4 comments
I wish projects like these would always include some basic info in their README about: (1) how it works, and (2) how it might fail.
mbrock on HNTotally agree, peoples needs to know how it works before starting using it.
areski on HNHow does it work? Where does it breakdown? Why are these things not in the README?
JohnDotAwesome on HNSeconded. The extent of what I know about this project is: 1. It's like git somehow? 2. I can run some commands which presumably do something? 3. That something happens faster…
danudey on HN
Not stable enough for production use and can lose data
From 1 comment
I have regularly used this with database that's nearing 1000 megabytes. I don't particularly mind slow snapshotting because my workflow is more about restoring database back to…
obsession on HN
Snapshot copying is slow and space-heavy on larger databases
From 2 comments
So, it appears to just copy tables around within the database. I wouldn't want to use this on a DB over a few MB in size. Sure, restores are "fast" (a table rename), but copies…
falcolas on HNWhy not use a binary backup method? Faster to backup and restore.
falcolas on HN
Table name handling in SQL construction looks injection-prone
From 2 comments
From the code: ``` INSERT INTO %s.%s SELECT * FROM %s.%s ``` Yeah, good luck with that.
Gigablah on HNLine 53 of https://github.com/fastmonkeys/stellar/blob/master/stellar/operations.py is ``` CREATE TABLE %s.%s LIKE %s.%s ``` This made me think of a table called ``` create table…
swehner on HN
Requests
Better README explaining how it works and where it fails
From 3 comments
I wish projects like these would always include some basic info in their README about: (1) how it works, and (2) how it might fail.
mbrock on HNHow does it work? Where does it breakdown? Why are these things not in the README?
JohnDotAwesome on HNJust a small correction; it's not PostreSQL, it's PostgreSQL.
ZenoArrow on HN
Practical examples
From 1 comment
Looks very nice, could you put up some practical examples?
mosselman on HN
Separation of schema and data changes with branching and merging
From 2 comments
Generally the hardest thing with version control on a database (for an evolving codebase) is separating unrelated changes - such as schema changes vs content updates - and…
robert_tweed on HNI'd love a tool that solves that problem. Schema / data / user / permission migrations, support for both production and development environments and integration with CM tools…
akurilin on HN
Questions
How does it compare to existing migration tools and transactional DDL
From 3 comments
This sort of thing is useful, but already supported by Postgres through transactional DDL. Migrations that fail will have their transaction reverted.
lucian1900 on HNThis sounds like something Sqitch would help with. http://sqitch.org
baudehlo on HNWhat if you're writing a migration that includes DML, and it fails partway through? Wouldn't it be good to be able to restore the DB state automatically and try again?
mdellabitta on HN
How does it compare to time travel queries or temporal databases
From 1 comment
how does this compare to time travel queries? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Temporal_database#cite_ref-SQL2011_1-2
iso8859-1 on HN
Alternatives named
Sqitch
From 1 comment
This sounds like something Sqitch would help with. http://sqitch.org
baudehlo on HN
shmig
From 1 comment
FWIW, I found shmig [1] much simpler than sqitch. Last I used sqitch, it returned a zero value on error, which made me leery of using it for scripted deployments. [1]…
mbucc on HN
LVM snapshots and mylvmbackup
From 3 comments
Why not use a binary backup method? Faster to backup and restore.
falcolas on HNAgreed. I've been successfully using mylvmbackup on 10gb+ databases for a few years now. http://www.lenzg.net/mylvmbackup/
martin_ on HNColumn-oriented databases virtually all feature this in the form of column compression (e.g. "repeat this value for the next 1000 rows"). And if you don't want column…
personZ on HN
Irmin
From 1 comment
If anyone's interested in git-like storage systems then it's work checking out Irmin [1]. Previous discussion is at [2]. Excerpt: "Irmin is a library to persist and synchronize…
amirmc on HN
Datomic
From 1 comment
Have you looked at Datomic? It seems to fit your problem description well.
symfrog on HN
DBSteward
From 1 comment
While not exactly the same thing, I've recently found and started using https://github.com/nkiraly/DBSteward to specify schema and then store the spec in my repo with the code.…
jimktrains2 on HN
mysqldump
From 1 comment
Nothing wrong with the syntax, it's just that if you're going to create an entire mirror of your database, you might as well use mysqldump. (Plus it'll actually be portable).
Gigablah on HN