zlacker

>>pg+(OP)
Does all of HN run on one single server?

>>blanto+y2
Not just a single server, a single process on a single core (last time I asked pg at least).

>>abstra+Y2
And I recall the last time I looked at the source (when it was released with Arc), it didn't use a database either. All the data is stored as files.

>>iamwil+y4
Files???? That's a joke right???

>>spoile+S5
Why should it be? You can get a long long way by treating the filesystem as a database. The first engineers at Amazon used the same technique a lot, as do I.

>>abstra+16
Because you always end up building your own database out of flat files and that is always worse than using an existing one.

>>kansfa+S6
And yet, here you are, on a site run off a flat file database.

>>saraid+t7
Just a nitpick. A "flat file" database suggests encoding all the data to a single file.

Using a files system as a database is a little different as file systems are databases in their own right.

The question to ask is "is the data I want to store in my 'database' enough like the data stored in a filesystem that I can just use the filesystem as my database?"