I strongly dislike how people look to github as an example, its the highest appeal to authority.
I know facebook uses mysql, but I also know that it is a bastardised custom version that has known constraints and has limited use (no foreign keys for example).
I spoke to the DBA who first deployed MySQL at Github and the vibe I got from him immediately was that he had doubled down on his prejudice: which is fine, but its not ok to ignore that it can be a lot of effort to work around issues with any given technology.
For a great example of what I mean: most people wouldn’t choose PHP for a new project (despite it having improved majorly) - the appeal to authority there is to say “it works for Facebook” without mentioning “Hack” or the myriad of internal processes to avoid the warts of PHP.
That a large headcount company can use something does not make it immune from criticism.
I know facebook uses mysql, but I also know that it is a bastardised custom version that has known constraints and has limited use (no foreign keys for example).
I spoke to the DBA who first deployed MySQL at Github and the vibe I got from him immediately was that he had doubled down on his prejudice: which is fine, but its not ok to ignore that it can be a lot of effort to work around issues with any given technology.
For a great example of what I mean: most people wouldn’t choose PHP for a new project (despite it having improved majorly) - the appeal to authority there is to say “it works for Facebook” without mentioning “Hack” or the myriad of internal processes to avoid the warts of PHP.
That a large headcount company can use something does not make it immune from criticism.