A Response to Those Who Hate My "How To Build a Site With No Database" Post

After reviewing many of the comments left on my post about building a site with no database backend, I'm convinced that a lot of people are missing my point.

I just want to be clear about something before I continue on with this post. I'm NOT advocating that you build sites without database backends. It's not my intention to say, "hey look, you don't NEED a stupid database! see...I did it with flat files!" I'm well aware of the inherent limitations you get when you use flat files over a database. You'll get no argument from me about that.

Let me be even clearer: There's a very good reason why using a database to store data is the conventional way of doing business. It's BECAUSE it's a good reason!

So, how can I possibly defend my post? Well, let me try.

My Point

I think the point that's been missed here is that when you look at the requirements of the site, when you look at what it's actually required to do, I think there's a very strong argument for not using a database. If you change the requirements, you change the implementation.

fwgx left a comment which is a good summation of other readers' comments. He says:

"...It's not hard to imagine what other requirements may be required later and as soon as that happens you're stuck. Can you easily get the maximum score per user between two dates? Can you find the average score for users who's name starts with a 'W' and who have played 5 games between midnight and 3 am?All reasonable queries that are easily answered using SQL but that would require tight coulping and nastiness in this solution.Not to mention the lack of type safty, referential integrity checks, FK constraints, transactions, load balancing, query caching, index tuning over time, backup systems, running on redundant servers, triggers etc..."

I'm going to argue here that he's completely missing the point. And believe me, my point is simple.

Don't invent requirements. Don't pre-optimize. Don't build stuff you don't need to. Just. Keep. It. Simple.

The requirements of the site I built don't require me to "find the average score for users who's names start with "W" and who have played 5 games between midnight and 3 am"? Why not? Because the site isn't going to show that information! And for another very good reason.

The site doesn't have users. This means that a user doesn't log in. A user doesn't have an account. If the site required that, then yes, I would have built it with a database. Period.

I appreciate the comment, and I appreciate the example here - but this is exactly what happens when we (developers) stop looking at what we're trying to solve and start inventing possibilities. We make things more complicated. We start talking about triggers, redundant servers, FK constraints.

As far as being "stuck" when/if requirements change later on. Far from it. Changing the code that reads the text file to code that reads a database table will be trivial. In fact, if anyone wants to challenge me - I'll do it and blog about how long it took to do. And I will be completely honest about the experience.

The bottom line here is that I'm not advocating text files as a replacement for databases. Far from it. I'm advocating that you should build software that solves the problem. Not make the problem more complicated.

Let's keep it simple.