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DATABASE DEBUNKINGS
Personal blog · dbdebunk.comdataprogramming
DATABASE DEBUNKINGS is a personal blog at dbdebunk.com about data and programming. Since 2010, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 75 times, most often “On Kinds of Keys: Natural, Primary and Surrogate; and the NoSQL Illusion”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-03, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (18) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Fabian Pascal's DATABASE DEBUNKINGS site, often with C.J. Date, for arguments on the relational model against NoSQL, XML, SQL and NULL. Most comments cite it as support for their own points.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 18 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- /3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2010-10-29
- On Kinds of Keys: Natural, Primary and Surrogate; and the NoSQL Illusion2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-06-27
- What Meaning Means: Business Rules, Predicates, Constraints and DB Consistency2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-06-12
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-03-10
- NULL Value Is a Contradiction in Terms2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-04-03
- Database Design:Classes of Property-Sharing Entities and Relations2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-09-06
What Hacker News says?
Fair enough. Cue Christopher Date, et al.: https://www.dbdebunk.com/
Comment linking /
on “I don't want to learn your query language (2018)”Submitted Denormalization for Performance: Don't Blame the Relational Model as a story · 70 points
HN discussionPascal and Date have been making these arguments forever: http://www.dbdebunk.com .
Comment linking /
on “Modern Data Practice and the SQL Tradition”Submitted Database Design: Relation Predicates and “Identical Relations” as a story · 59 points
HN discussionAlso, they should be forced to read Fabian Pascal's rants about the end of Western Civilization, aggressive ignorance, and lack of understanding of the Relational Model. http://www.dbdebunk.com/
Comment linking /
on “Goodbye, CouchDB”Submitted To Really Understand Integrity, Don't Start with SQL as a story · 3 points
HN discussionNULL in 'relational' databases in particular is a disaster. Or at least according to the notorious Fabian Pascal. http://www.dbdebunk.com/2017/04/null-value-is-contradiction-... Codd never proposed it in his original relational model. For good reason.
Comment linking /2017/04/null-value-is-contradiction-in-terms.html
on “NULL: The worst mistake of computer science? (2015)”Submitted This Week Special: The US Sinking Deeper into the Dark Ages as a story · 3 points
HN discussion"""How does one quantify "sinking down the drain"? """ I'm thinking along these lines: http://www.dbdebunk.com/content2006.html
Comment linking /content2006.html
on “The switch: Python to Node.js”Submitted First Normal Form (1NF) in Theory and Practice as a story · 3 points
HN discussionMy rule of thumb is, use PostgreSQL unless you have a well-defined need for something else. There are few things you can't do with it, and many things most other free databases lack. Also, if you're not aware of it you'll probably be interested in Fabian Pascal's Database Debunking's site [1]. [1]: http://www.dbdebunk.com/
Comment linking /
on “Postgres Demystified”Submitted Multidimensional Relations, Flat Tables and Logical-Physical Confusion as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAs a non-CS grad coming fresh to databases, I found both the entity-relationship, and the object-oriented models confusing. Then I read Date [1] and Codd's [2] books and papers on the relational model, the one from the 1970s that is basically set and type theory applied to data, and found that to be a lot clearer and a more powerful abstraction to deal with your data model. For example, your Relational Model introdu…
Comment linking /2013/09/entity-relatonship-model-not-data-model.html
on “A Tiny Intro to Database Systems”Submitted On Kinds of Keys: Natural, Primary and Surrogate; and the NoSQL Illusion as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> I still don't understand database systems, how they work internally, and what problem they really solve. The use a formal, mathematical abstraction (relational algebra), even if somewhat crapily implemented by particular RDBMS, to facilitate saving data, relationships between data, and queries, while at the same time assuring certain properties (e.g. ACID) and doing so in a platform/programming language neutral fo…
Comment linking /2015/11/moving-in-circles-sql-for-nosql.html
on “Things I Hate About PostgreSQL (2013)”Submitted This Week Database Debunkings as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIf you’re in the mood for something zany and tech related there’s always Fabian Pascal: http://www.dbdebunk.com/2018/07/lenin-trotsky-data-managemen...
Comment linking /2018/07/lenin-trotsky-data-management-and.html?m=1
on “The Strangest Book on the Theory of Computation (2009)”Submitted This Week dbdebunk.com as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> This is where I stop understanding how the rest of the world can work at all. Without some rigorous tools I just do not see how one can get such things right. Well, sure, spend weeks of trying out test cases, printing out the structures, manually check everything (in the testing world this is known as writing lots of “oracles”), try at great pains to find out the reason for wrong results, guess what program change…
Comment linking /2017/06/what-meaning-means-business-rules_11.html
on “Why not program right?”Submitted This Week DATABASE DEBUNKINGS as a story · 2 points
HN discussionLots of peole got hung up on the example, which I thought would be be helpful on the discussion, but certainly should not replace the main point, which is: Relations, attributes and tuples are logical. A PK is a combination of one or more attributes representing a name that uniquely identifies tuples and, thus, is logical too[2], while performance is determined exclusively at the physical level, by implementation. S…
Comment linking /2018/04/a-new-understanding-of-keys-part-3.html
on “The principles of database design, or, the Truth is out there”Submitted This Week DATABASE DEBUNKINGS as a story · 2 points
HN discussionWhich reminds me of Fabian Pascal, probably somewhere drinking heavily to forget the current state of the DB industry. (Context: for more than a decade he tried to educate people on the relational model, the ill-thought back-to-the-past ideas that are NoSQL DBs, and more besides. Unfortunately his old site was scrapped, it seems, and has as of 2012 turned it into this blog: http://www.dbdebunk.com/ )
Comment linking /
on “Codd's relational vision – has NoSQL come full circle?”Submitted Unmuddling Modeling Part II More Misconceptions as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis is correct! A relational DBMS is simply predicate logic applied to set theory[0]. The DBMS part offers logical/physical data independence, which is amazing, and no one has actually implemented that (NoSQL, neither!). SQL has never been particularly awesome way to interact with relational database management systems; SQL isn't even strictly relational: SQL tables are bags (multisets), not sets[1]. The Rel projec…
Comment linking /page/page/1717959.htm
on “OrmHate”Submitted To Really Understand Integrity, Don't Start with SQL as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI've slowly come to the same opinion over the past few years. I'm just going to leave this here for posterity: http://www.dbdebunk.com/
Comment linking /
on “NoSQL Took Away The Relational Model And Gave Nothing Back”Submitted Simple Domains and Value Atomicity as a story · 2 points
HN discussionResponding to several comments. (The _underscores_ in the following quotes are mine for emphasis.) >kpmah: I think most are pragmatic and admit you _may_ have to do denormalise for performance >calpaterson: So _rare_ to actually have to denormalise for performance today though. The article's author didn't describe it as "may"/"rare" which leaves some wiggle room for the cases of denormalization required in real-worl…
Comment linking /p/papers_3.html
on “Denormalization for Performance: Don't Blame the Relational Model”Submitted Don't Design Databases Without Foundation Knowledge and Conceptual Models as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
