Enterprise Database Omissions

Noting absence of Oracle, MS SQL Server, DB2 from article despite being top-ranked databases, discussion of boring enterprise tech that powers critical systems

The discussion highlights the conspicuous absence of industry titans like Oracle, MS SQL Server, and DB2 from contemporary tech discourse, noting that their proven stability often makes them too "boring" for modern blogging despite their massive market dominance. Commenters point out a disconnect between startup hype and technical history, arguing that many "new" database innovations have actually existed in enterprise systems for decades. This world of legacy technology is ultimately likened to "dark matter" or "garbage trucks"—unseen and unglamorous infrastructure that nevertheless performs the essential work of powering global banks, insurance companies, and government agencies.

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No MSSQL, DB2 or Oracle either. Anything this proven & stable is probably not worth blogging about in this context. SQLite gets a lot of attention on HN but that's a bit of an exception.

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Barely any mention of Oracle or MS Sql Server, commonly reckoned to be #1 and #3 most used databases in the world

https://db-engines.com/en/ranking

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Oracle is mentioned at the start, where he proclaims the "dominance" of Postgres and then admits its newest features have been in Oracle for nearly a quarter of a century already. The dominance he's talking about is only about how many startups raise how many millions from investors, not anything technical.

And then of course at the end he has a whole section about Larry Ellison, like always.

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Isn't it because it's about news , as in what's changing, rather than being about what's staying the same? He's a researcher, so his interests are always going to be more oriented toward new systems and new companies more than the big dominant systems.

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There's nothing technically new that he's covering here though? It's all just startups adding stuff to Postgres that Oracle had for decades already.

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The startups are new.

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Over here, it is DB2, SQL Server or Oracle if using a plain RDMS, or whatever DB abstraction layer is provided on top of a SaaS product, where we get to query with some kind of ORM abstraction preventing raw SQL, or GraphQL, without knowing the implementation details.

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This sounds like a flashback to J2EE. Which I know is still alive and well. Banks, insurance companies and the tax agency do not much care for fancy new stuff, but that it works.

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I describe these techs like garbage trucks. No one likes to see them but they’re there every day doing a decent part of what it takes to hold society together hah.

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Scott Hanselman has a good term for all these kind of jobs, the dark matter developers.

https://www.hanselman.com/blog/dark-matter-developers-the-un...

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Yep, Fortune 500 enterprise consulting, boring technology that pays the bills.

Java, .NET, C++, nodejs, Sitecore, Adobe Experience Manager, Optimizely, SAP, Dynamics, headless CMSes,...

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Never felt so old, seeing nodejs in a list of old boring stuff.

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Yeah, it is on the edge, but unavoidable in many Web projects.

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Andy is probably the only person who adores Larry Ellison (Oracle) unironically.

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Ironically unironically.

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