Ignoring, laughing, fighting, winning
A now-famous quote that I probably don’t need to attribute: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Where is Drizzle in this lifecycle? I’ve been hearing and reading some comments to the tune of “those Drizzle guys think it’s easy to rip MySQL stuff out and start over, wait till they see how hard it’s going to get when the real world sinks in.” Maybe, maybe. But maybe not, too. Maybe not.
I’ve seen more than one software project that was belittled as “never gonna amount to anything, save your time” and went on to do quite well. Never underestimate the power of a handful of passionate and talented people. I personally feel that Drizzle has a bright future.
Nice post, never heard of drizzle before this. It looks like an interesting project, especially considering it ‘is focused on MySQL’s original goals of ease-of-use, reliability and performance.’
Josiah
29 Apr 10 at 10:39 pm
Baron, nice and in time
Remember, every project starts with one man and then it becomes big..same is the case with InnoDB. In 2001; when I was part of MySQL; there wasn’t any managers or CEO; other than Monty, david and Kai and not even mysql.com website; but after few years we all know how MySQL evolved in the market; and same is the case with any company in the world.
Same is the case when Werner presented or when anyone heard of cloud; every one might have laughed at him; but today he proved and he made whole amazon as technology company rather than just online reseller…
you never know..things can always change. Sometimes luck should be in your favor as long as you are in the right technology domain.. and drizzle is no exception.. apple is proved with its iPhone app platform that one needs to create echo system and people and community will take from that point onwards; same is the case that needs to happen in data store technology; the community is waiting for a echo system where anything can be plug & play. May be drizzle and/or maria can prove that and so called NoSQL can also be part of this echo system.
Venu Anuganti
30 Apr 10 at 12:17 am
“I personally feel that Drizzle has a bright future.”
Based on what?. I mean, Drizzle is simply a MySQL fork with a couple of additional features. There are not any benchmark of Drizzle’s performance; heck, only source files are available right now (https://launchpad.net/drizzle/+download) :P.
I’m a little tired of theory (specially related to databases). Show me proofs, show me facts, show me numbers and leave the hippie thoughts for the kids.
Krank
30 Apr 10 at 1:48 am
“I personally feel that Drizzle has a bright future.”
“Based on what?. I mean, Drizzle is simply a MySQL fork with a couple of additional features. There are not any benchmark of Drizzle’s performance; heck, only source files are available right now (https://launchpad.net/drizzle/+download) :P.”
Benchmarks are here..
https://lists.launchpad.net/drizzle-benchmark/
benchmarks are part of every build test.
Simply a fork with a couple of additional features ? That summary is about as informed as the no-benchmark comment.
It compiles it builds, see here
http://drizzle.org/wiki/Compiling/Ubuntu
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/drizzle-dev
–
Tom Hanlon
Tom Hanlon
30 Apr 10 at 2:47 am
I think it would be great if Drizzle would be
successful and the chance certainly exists. However
when I tried it out a few months its performance
which is one of the main marketing points simply
wasn’t there yet.
And the fact also exists that building a better MySQL
is both about software engineering (which I think
Drizzle can be successful in) and about designing
complex algorithms which sometimes requires Ph.D
competence level to handle (which I don’t think the
Drizzle team can be successful in, although they
could make architecture open enough to allow for
specialists to handle that in their own sandbox).
Mikael Ronstrom
30 Apr 10 at 5:47 am
Baron, I don’t even know if I should comment. This is a an oversimplification that is devoid of any sense.
You need to point at at least someone who ignored (you should have seen our VP’s face when it got started), laughed at (eh?), or fought Drizzle.
You’ll find none.
Konstantin
30 Apr 10 at 6:11 am
I haven’t seen anyone ignore it. I’ve definitely seen people laugh at it and belittle it. But I am slowly learning not to drag other people’s names through the mud to make my own points :-) So I won’t name any names.
Xaprb
30 Apr 10 at 7:37 am
Drizzle just smell passion, consuming lot of time for many talents. Not easy to get respect when the plan is to be more community driven and more open in a market that is still very revenu driven.
Stretch between some experimented guru’s comming from the time when there own decisions already join a market direction having clients that are depending on what they had build and some early adopters that does not have any money to put in the product.
Lauthing is just a natural protection meaning good luck if you choose such hard way.
From my own experience your are alway pay back from any effort.
svar
30 Apr 10 at 12:24 pm
Thanks Baron!
re: PHD
We once had a meeting at MySQL where someone famously stormed out of the meeting after no one had paid enough attention to their ideas with the statement “well I have a PHD…”. After the person left the room, I asked “Who here has a PHD?”. About half the people in the room raised their hands.
Brian Aker
30 Apr 10 at 12:51 pm
there is the other side to having ph.d’s: ph.d-quality code. complex algorithms don’t always make up for contemptible code.
jim winstead
30 Apr 10 at 4:39 pm
Drizzle seems to be in early development, so I don’t know why people judge so quickly.. I believe the future of open source DBMS is drizzle.. :) The #1 feature I like about drizzle, is its flexibility.
Billy Earney
1 May 10 at 9:50 pm
PhD’s are great in theory.
EricB
3 May 10 at 2:44 pm
Baron, the last time we slung names wasn’t all that bad, was it? ;)
(Attention not serious, but I think we settled that point :))
re drizzle, I’ve said it before in public and I will repeat it gladly:
I think it’s a great project, well worthy of attention with laudable goals.
However, until the first GA release everything’s a code-throwaway-frenzy, an exciting time of having ideas and implementing them without having to worry too much about breaking all sorts of things (features, performance, stability).
The hard part for the drizzle team will come after the 1.0 GA release, when all of a sudden you are held back because of compatibility concerns, the need for quick and dirty bug fixes arises, design problems are uncovered that would require a significant architecture change.
I sure hope the guys will make it over that hump, but until a 1.0 is out I have a heard time counting on drizzle in production. And I don’t say that to belittle them, they are friends and (were) respected colleagues of mine.
Kay Röpke
4 May 10 at 7:37 am
Yes, I’m not recommending it for production or pretending that I can see far into the future — just saying I think it is a strong beginning.
Xaprb
4 May 10 at 8:09 am
I like what Drizzle is doing, and I want to see them succeed. That said — give us a stable, production capable release!
Without a release, it’s all just talk and theory — no help to people who need to solve real problems. And to be frank, after two years, the talk is getting less and less interesting.
Ryan Thiessen
22 May 10 at 2:37 am