On Thu, Apr 6, 2023 at 4:16 PM Josh McKenzie <jmcken...@apache.org> wrote:
> KEYSPACE is fine. If we want to introduce a standard nomenclature like > DATABASE that’s also fine. Inventing brand new ones is not fine, there’s no > benefit. > > I'm with Benedict in principle, with Aleksey in practice; I think KEYSPACE > and SCHEMA are actually fine enough. > > Having learned that SCHEMA already exists as a synonym for KEYSPACE, I think everything is good here. If Cassandra evolves to a richer database (transactions and queries beyond just key based access) then gradually adopting SCHEMA as the primary name might feel natural. Once we get there. > If and when we get to any kind of multi-tenancy, having a more > metaphorical abstraction that users are familiar with like these becomes > more valuable; it's pretty clear that things in different keyspaces, > different databases, or even different schemas could have different access > rules, resourcing, etc from one another. > > At Datastax I've tried, with some success actually, to ban the use of the word "Database" in our cloud service, because it was too overloaded. Various people, one group of which were the UI designers that expose their point of view to actual users, had completely different ideas of what a "database" is. I remember at least: - the cluster of servers / VMs in the cloud that together contain a Cassandra database. => It's a cluster. - One tenant in a multi-tenanant cluster => It's a tenant - A KEYSPACE. This would have been most correct in my world view, but was actually the least used. => KEYSPACE or SCHEMA - The software product: Cassandra, DSE, or Astra I think the first two were the ones actually used in the UI. Now that I think about this email thread, the different expectations of what the word "database" means might correlate with whether the speaker's background is in the Oracle/Postgresql/Microsoft camp, or the MySQL/MongoDB camp. So it's like me trying to order a bisquit in a US cafe. henrik > While the off-the-cuff logical TABLEGROUP thing is a *literal* statement > about what the thing is, it'd be another unique term to us; we have enough > things in our system where we've charted our own path. My personal .02 is > we don't need to go adding more. :) > > On Thu, Apr 6, 2023, at 8:54 AM, Mick Semb Wever wrote: > > > … but that should be a different discussion about how we evolve config. > > > > I disagree. Nomenclature being difficult can benefit from holistic and > forward thinking. > Sure you can label this off-topic if you like, but I value our discuss > threads being collaborative in an open-mode. Sometimes the best idea is on > the tail end of a sequence of bad and/or unpopular ideas. > > > > > > -- Henrik Ingo c. +358 40 569 7354 w. www.datastax.com <https://www.facebook.com/datastax> <https://twitter.com/datastax> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/datastax/> <https://github.com/datastax/>
