Dataset: databases for lazy people

[jacquesm]

In the 80's there was a product called 'dataease'. For once a product actually lived up to its name, fairly complex databases could be created using a very simple user interface. So simple that plenty of non-programmers used it to create functional applications that were hard to distinguish from custom built stuff (usually using DBIII or FoxPro or something along those lines).

I've never seen anything come close to the simplicity with which that package managed to connect the various tables to each other and to generate forms with sensible rule based validation (types, ranges, sets).

Databases for 'lazy people' should have a good look at what has already been built to prevent re-inventing the wheel badly, JSON files are easy for programmers but the world is a lot bigger than that. (Or maybe they intended to write 'databases for lazy programmers', then it makes more sense.)

Edit: they're (surprise!) still around after 30 years:

http://dataeaseuk.com/products/dataease/dataease-dos

[jasim]

Even the full-blown xBase languages (dBase, FoxPro, Clipper etc.) is so much easier to quickly manipulate data than SQL. The concept of a persistent data-store is built into the language, or rather, the language revolves around data access as opposed to modern languages that are primarily about abstraction.

We've come so far from the simple old days where a TodoMVC would have been just `use todo; browse`.

[overcast]

The company I work for currently still uses it to run reports for the main MRP system. You're bringing so much terror to my Sunday morning.

[jamii]

I thought https://fieldbook.com/ was pretty slick. I would love to have a similar UI as an open-source interface to sqlite.

[dang]

Great find. Another one for the bonus list: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11051676.

[polm23]

You wouldn't have a video of that anywhere, would you? Curious as to what it looks like, and searches on YouTube seem to just turn up a newer graphical version.

[dalacv]

be sure to check out Oracle APEX (https://apex.oracle.com/en/)

[Twisell]

Being mostly a database guy I often feel dumb when I read discussions comparing a popular Python framework over some cutting edge js "unicorn powered" new framework...

So it suddenly make me quite reassured that some others are terrorized by SQL which look to me like a joyful playground.

I guess that should be everyone mantra in CS. Don't underestimate yourself, don't overestimate others, just accept that you can't master everything anymore.

[innertracks]

Yes! "Don't underestimate yourself, don't overestimate others, just accept that you can't master everything anymore." Master what inspires you seems to be working for me right now.

A major life lesson for me. Last week a friend told me the hardest part about being my friend was the sadness he felt watching me sell myself short. Now that I'm getting my bearings again heading into the job market I'm really appreciating his observation.

I guess I should have been paying more attention to Stuart Smalley on SNL.

[ciroduran]

SQL is powerful and awesome. You can process almost any information such as you don't need to do any extra steps after obtaining results. That is, of course, if your database is well designed. That part is hard to automate.

[FlorianOver]

> Because managing databases in Python should be as simple as reading and writing JSON files.

Not the best sales pitch. :D

[klenwell]

I could imagine this being very handy for a lot of ETL stuff and one-off data migrations.

But really I just love the logo:

https://dataset.readthedocs.org/en/latest/

[jgalt212]

It is. And I use it for a lot of the tasks you mentioned as well a low friction way to start a new project where I'm not exactly sure where the data model is headed.

[nrjames]

Dataset is awesome. I've been using it consistently for the past several years. It is lovely in ETL scripts, especially considering you can use it just to send regular SQL when needed.

[xemoka]

Yep, I've used this too in simple flask programs. Pretty simple, and it's great when you don't really need to do anything beyond simple data storage and retrieval. It's upsert functionality is pretty handy—particularly pre-DB support. Not that any of this couldn't be done by hand, but why when you don't have to?

[vosper]

Any thoughts on the performance?

[rrggrr]

Pandas read_sql does so much more for me I'm okay losing the abstractions. http://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/generated/pandas...

[Pxtl]

I like this. Even though I tend to use statically-typed programming languages so I'd probably never use this, if I'm bashing out a script in something dynamic I often wish I could store data in a way that was as quick and hackable as the language im using, but more powerful than flat files.

Sqlite has always been a bit dynamically typed, it only makes sense to finish the job and lazy-create tables and columns as needed.

I can't see anything in the docs about how the upsert command works, though. Too many upsert commands use the primary key for upserting, which fails with autogenerated keys.

[elcapitan]

Hm. For reading stuff, this looks simply like a normal orm-like wrapper around a sql library (edit: SQLAlchemy it is).

For writing on the other hand, this has the wonderful side-effect of doing schema changes on the fly, like adding some new columns to a table because one new record has that field.

I know it's not meant to be used that way, but inevitably this will be used against large existing databases (used inside some company for example), and then those side-effects will show up and make a lot of people very happy I guess.

[Pxtl]

Some questions I can't figure from reading the docs: indexes? Are they inferred by my selects or do I have to create them explicitly? Or do they just not exist? Ditto keys, although if you want FK constraints in a loose ad-hoc system like this it's probably the wrong tool for the job.

I imagine the nested transactions are implementation defined, since some dbs do "rollback rolls back current trans" and some do "rollback rolls back entire stack.

[talideon]

https://dataset.readthedocs.org/en/latest/api.html#dataset.T...

[JustSomeNobody]

> In short, dataset makes reading and writing data in databases as simple as reading and writing JSON files.

But SQL is the best DSL for databases Period.

[Twisell]

Just noticed that this other project popped up a few hours after with a slightly different approach on the same question. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11053525

[coleifer]

This exists for peewee orm as well:

http://docs.peewee-orm.com/en/latest/peewee/playhouse.html#d...

[tartakovsky]

This is a great find... seems to be made to copy this. Another reason to use peewee I suppose. Could create quick yaml file support similar to dataset.

[ragnar123]

How does this compare to TinyDB[1]?

[1] https://github.com/msiemens/tinydb

[enedil]

Not quite. TinyDB is itself a new data base while dataset seems like a wrapper for popular relational databases.

[leke]

Doesn't python have an active record binding?

[najtsirk]

It similar to pydal and I prefer pydal.

[joelbondurant]

there's already mongodb.