Renaming database fields is ureasonably hard
fabianlindfors.se
fabianlindfors.se
If, as claimed, when using a RDBMS:
> your database will make the change almost immediately without having to update any rows
The amount of downtime required to deploy a change which renames the column and changes the code which accesses said column, is marginally more than "almost immediately".
Completely agree on this point! Downtime is definitely acceptable in many cases and the work I'm doing is aimed at people who don't want that. ReshapeDB is not just about simple changes like renaming though, it will allow changes that would take too long for a maintenance window. Planning on writing more about that soon!
> The amount of downtime required to deploy a change which renames the column and changes the code which accesses said column, is marginally more than "almost immediately".
That was the point I was trying to make! The actual database operation is practically instantaneous but the whole dance around that with deploying your application changes is not.
Your article doesn't really highlight that it's a nonissue for the vast, vast majority of developers and applications.
> but the whole dance around that with deploying your application changes is not
With staged deployments (if your application isn't deployed to more than one host arguing about downtime for maintenance seems ridiculous) the actual downtime can be very close to the time the db migration takes.