I changed databases again (please learn from my mistakes) | Theo - t3․gg YouTube Video Summary
Theo from the youtube channel Theo - t3․gg, shares his database journey, detailing the switch to Convex for his T3 chat application. He acknowledges the prior database changes and his hope for this to be the last. Theo dives into the chaos of debugging and the painful migration process, emphasizing the importance of unblocking his team.
Detailed Summary:
Convex migration 4.0 with t3․gg's Theo, and learning from mistakes.
Theo details how he is using Convext for his database and emphasizes the fact that he hopes this is the last time he has to migrate databases and the pains it has cost him. He dives into the new database he chose, Convex, and elaborates more as to the benefits that are seen from it. As well as detailing why this migration took 5+ years off his life.
The 4 day debugging session
It was described that the 4 day debugging session was so chaotic that it felt like solving a murder mystery, wishing what he had gone through on no one. The main goal of all of the migration was to make it so that the other engineers working with him on the T3 chat could make changes more confidently. As a point the author makes to clarify the point of how none of it was Convex's fault and that their team is finally unblocked.
Why WorkOS became a sponsored segment
There was also an embarrassing story regarding a Friday ship that went out at 11:50PM that broke things for a ton of users, before realizing that "I'm Underpaid!", so there was a quick word of todays sponsor WorkOS, as enterprise grade auth was needed for the project.
The Data Architecture problems that arose
When the dust settled, there were problems. As a TLDR; it was revealed that everything had been stored locally using Dexie and due to syncing it became a mess! This set up was simple and consistent, but it had problems. An IndexDB was used as a browser API in order to make a local first possible setup. This hellish architecture gave rise to the sync engine issues described earlier, which is why all other data had to move into the actual "DB". It's noted that he will also make another video diving into all of this later.