Hacker News Reader

Comment by justinclift | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I wondered if anyone was going to be pedantic about that. ;)

"Pedantic"?

Your post is wholly based on time travel (~"nosql predates sql") and introduces a completely alternative evolution of database design in which quel never happened and we go "full circle" to the nosql-that-was-prior-to-sql.

I don't think the parent claimed that NoSQL existed at the time; just that Postgres was a NoSQL database as we understand the term today. Like describing a wandering swordsman in ancient China as a "knight-errant", even if knights themselves as legally-warranted weapon-carriers didn't yet exist.

Which is not to say that the poster wasn't wrong about their claim, but it's not invalid to make said claim in casual English in the particular way you're implying.

Though, also, in the more general case, "NoSQL" databases did certainly exist at the time Postgres was conceived (Postgres just wasn't one of them.) Navigational databases like IBM IMS were what we'd call "a NoSQL database" if they were conceived today.

I don't think Postgres was "NoSQL database as we understand the term today". The basis of NoSQL is not the lack of SQL but the non-relational data model. Postgres (mostly) sticks to the relational data model, although it performs surprisingly well when used as a NoSQL data store.

Well, I definitely meant it as "the lack of SQL" when I wrote above. Didn't realise people would actually give a crap to the point they have though. ;)

Thank God you haven't claimed it was webscale. We'd get nuts.

Then it is a case of what you meant and what you said being different things. So, yeah, people give a crap when something is confusing or incorrect. I mean, we write code, right? Being correct matters. NoSQL means it is something other than a relational database.

I would call that "interesting" instead of "pedantic"

Yeah, you're probably right.

That's not being pedantic

Reply on news.ycombinator.com