ExplainDB: A Database System Built for Understandability | Hacker News Reader

ExplainDB: A Database System Built for Understandability

github.com

78 pointspykello9 comments

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TLDR: didactic DB in python together with a hand's-on DBMS course in Jupyter, WIP since 2024 but no releases

Seems like a great idea, worth evaluating and contributing to.

Others afaik in C++ and rust - see e.g.,

- list: https://github.com/pingcap/awesome-database-learning

- list: https://dbdb.io/

- CMU: https://github.com/cmu-db/bustub

- GA tech: https://github.com/jarulraj/buzzdb

- rust/distributed: https://github.com/erikgrinaker/toydb

I take it the "understandability" is in the sense of how an RDBMS is constructed?

Finally a readable README!

The problem is that the relational database of tables has no relationship to how humans store information, we humans use graph structures to relate information. This is why RDBMS are a dead end in getting closer to understanding.

This is a system for teaching undergrad students how RDBMS work, not a DBMS for modeling human understanding.

Giant citation needed. This is completely unsubstantiated. And contrary also to whole schools of epistemology. Also nothing to do with TFA.

"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man"

Funny enough, GFQL (oss cypher on CPU/GPU dataframes, no DB needed) runs optimized graph queries with the usual CSR-like indexes... But underlying data is columnar as in duckdb. Likewise, for fast billionscale perf on single node, maps graph compute to pure vector ops. Storage, data representation, & reasoning are largely separated concepts.

A machine that makes ravioli also works in an unhumanlike manner. A tool should follow the tool's way, not human way.

Besides, I'd say that it's not quite clear how we store information. I myself would point to sets as to a worthy contender.

Relational algebraic model (which SQL is a debased form of) is literally based on propositional logic. Or at least that's the claim. Propositional & predicate logic is evidently part of human language, grammar, and present in human thinking systems. Though it would be -- as you are intimating -- insane hubris to make one singular claim about how the brain represents knowledge.

Commenter is self-promoting their "graph DB" related product.

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