Ask HN: Why do relational databases index instead of a separate module/process?

2 points by rpedela 12y ago ↗ HN

Sphinx [1] provides SphinxQL which is a subset of SQL. Assuming you follow Sphinx's table formatting rules and SphinxQL can handle your SELECT query then your SELECT query can be much faster than querying the database directly [2].

So my question is why not create something like Sphinx, but have it focused on indexing relational databases for the purposes of generic SELECT statements? Is this a good idea? Would this be faster? Why or why not?

[1] http://sphinxsearch.com/

[2] http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2009/04/19/talking-mysql-to-sphinx/

1 comment

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anywherenotes 12y ago ↗

To answer your question "Why do relational databases index instead of a separate module/process?", you can see this quote from [2] that you linked: "it is clear when you can use index for sort MySQL will be a lot faster."

Relational databases are very fast when they can use indexes.