| ▲ | Show HN: Minigraf – An embedded, bi-temporal graph database in Rust(github.com) |
| 24 points by adityamukho 7 hours ago | 16 comments |
| A successor project to my previous attempt at building a temporal graph database (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23455516). This one builds on its predecessor's concept, but drops the dependency on another database to provide the storage, transaction and query engines. Minigraf is self-contained, packaged as a library crate, embeds into your application, and supports full bi-temporality. |
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| ▲ | fusslo an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| what does 'Embedded' mean in this context? forgive my ignorance on such a basic concept. I read 'Embedded' as in 'for Embedded systems' Does it mean 'Embedded in your rust application'? |
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| ▲ | itishappy an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, "embedded database" is a term-of-art for in-application database. Many (most?) databases run a client-server architecture even for local apps. | | | |
| ▲ | andrashorvathde an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | We can think about a web application that can use SQLite or Postgres.
Both use SQL as language, but Postgres is a separate service with its own port and ops work. |
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| ▲ | adsharma 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Why do you need another database and another query language for this? Existing cypher based databases which support typed properties (including timestamps) on relationship tables can handle this use case just fine. |
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| ▲ | baq 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | bitemporal does not mean 'including timestamps' and out of existing RDBMSes only the truly most expensive ones support some kind of temporal queries; I've checked out for a bit, but if there's any with native bitemporal support that'd be quite the news | | |
| ▲ | adsharma 22 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Bi-temporal means the DB keeps track of transaction time and valid/effective time separately. Most databases have a notion of logical clock to implement MVCC/transactions. So this is just a mapping. Some in the spanner family actually use a drift limited physical clock. The second part is using an index to answer queries about facts in the past. Like what was the capital of India in 1800? There are existing embedded graph databases which do this. Disclosure: I maintain one. | |
| ▲ | Tanjreeve an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is bitemporal more than being able to time travel by transaction and having some sort of time lookup for next transaction? It's a new term to me. |
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| ▲ | Tanjreeve 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Most graph databases I'm aware of require a server and aren't embedded into applications. Using datalog and applying it to graphs also more general and thus preferable than cypher which is still a niche specifically for graph databases. Also "because they can" seems obligatory. | |
| ▲ | ex1fm3ta 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I feel you, I am completely lost with all new ''graph flavoured DB". I keep challenging those (with the help of Opus model ) and the answer is always the same "use progresql". | | |
| ▲ | phoghed an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Have to watch out that Claude hasn’t just figured out that you like being told to use Postgres lol | | |
| ▲ | ex1fm3ta an hour ago | parent [-] | | Nope. Memory and data sharing for training are turned off. (I put 'turned off' in quotes because I don't know if Anthropic really keeps its promise. Often, it is cheaper for companies to break the law and just pay the fine.)
I also use adversarial review and the '10th man' rule a lot. In fact, I spend more time planning than executing. I explicitly told Claude never to make a choice without proving it with numbers. By numbers, I mean benchmark results and score-based decisions (for example: 0.5 points for speed, 1 point for libraries, 2 points for documentation).
The only thing I doubt are benchmark numbers, because they change depending on the hardware and what you test. Anyway, we always end up choosing PostgreSQL for large projects or SQLite for light ones (which makes sense). |
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| ▲ | Tanjreeve an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Opus recommending a database server to swap in for an embedded file based database is either an outcome of the overwhelming volume of cloud based web dev + API glue code chat it was trained on or it's being obsequious but wrong. |
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| ▲ | canadiantim 34 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| How does it compare with the since-discontinued embedded graph database cozodb? https://github.com/cozodb/cozo It also used datalog, written in rust Great to see tho, I'm always eagerly hoping for a successful embedded graph database. Most recently my hope was for kuzudb, but they got acquihired; though it's still open-sourcing' as LadybugDB. Highly recommend taking inspiration from Kuzudb/Ladybugdb and cozodb. Godspeed! |
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| ▲ | adsharma 19 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Maintainer of LadybugDB here. I'm reviewing a PR to transpile GQL to Cypher. It should be possible to transpile datalog or another query language that is interesting. Implementing storage and secondary indicies is the hard part. Won't comment on rewriting the DB in Rust beyond what's in GitHub discussions. |
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| ▲ | aavisangle an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| what different features it offer than sqlight? |
