Schema-Less

typically refers to RDBMS being ab-used(?) to not have a schema, in exchange for

• Scalability
• lite-programmer customizability

Sounds like trying to get NoSQL but on a more-mature Platform.

Mar'2024: Nikhil Suresh hates it: The first sign I'm dealing with an Idiot-Pattern clone is always "I've found a way to not worry about our data model, ha ha", and always ends with "I have single-handedly destroyed the infrastructure of this company". Also, you can never fire them because there is a schema, it lives in their incomprehensible code and in their brains. The worst part is that they're always so proud of the flexibility, as if they're the first fucking genius to realize that if you discard things like, I dunno, database types and queryability and any sort of validation, then you can code "without interruption" whatever that means.

• he references Bill Karwin's extremely good book, SQL Antipatterns, which I unfortunately only read a year later: If you hear phrases like the following spoken by your project team, it’s a clue that someone is employing the EAV antipattern.

2009-03-18-FriendfeedSchemalessMysql