this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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It sounds way less offensive to those who decry the original terminology's problematic roots but still keeps its meaning intact.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I've switched over to using primary/replica for database stuff because it's more accurate. The replicas don't always behave themselves so calling them "slaves" implies a level of obedience to the "master" that they don't have.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ask Haiti about the level of obedience that is implied there :-D

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Look at me, I am your database now.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

For a distributed database there is also fragmentation/sharing though. In this case calling the nodes replicas is not accurate. I guess you would call these “shard” or “dsta” nodes.

You are right about the “slaves” not behaving, in fact they jump on the chance to become the “master” themselves once the current “master” goes down. Then there is the split-brain problem.

It's really more like a worker boss relationship, but I would hesitate to call database nodes “workers” because this one is usually used for a processing engine like Spark.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A lot of distributed databases use the concept of quorum to prevent split-brain. Does that make them a kind of democracy?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Usually quorum is maintained by using odd numbering so that when one node fails the next sequential node assumes the role allowing quorum-election breaking any ties.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

It depends, there are too many different databases to say they all use that approach.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

In Cassandra all nodes are equal, but specific nodes hold specific parts of data. The only concept is the coordinator node which is the node that got the query. All nodes can handle all queries. The coordinator node is different per request.