> > The section "The solution: editions?" in the article addresses directly the point of existing data.
> I'm sorry, where?
Here:
quote
[...]This should be a nice middle ground which avoids breaking backwards compatibility, but lets the database engine move forwards and not be bogged down by its own history.
end quote
> Regarding busy_timeout, why is 5s specifically a better default?
According to the post we are discussing, any number greater than zero is better than the current default:
quote
The default behavior [no timeout] has lead me to writing real-world bugs, where systems would sometimes just crash. I've manually written retry loops to fix it.
The section "The solution: editions?" in the article addresses directly the point of existing data.
The way I read it, this article does not advocate at any point to change the defaults for existing databases, but rather to start with better defaults for new databases.
Also, regarding the timeout of 5 seconds, I disagree with your premise "SQLite doesn't decide, which makes perfect sense". As the article explains, SQLite decides on the value zero (ie. instant error), which is arguably an inconvenient default.
In Europe, the Cyber Resilience Act mandates the manufacturer to:
* Report any security breaches within 72 hours to a public body (country's CSIRT + ENISA).
* for "all products with digital elements [...] including those already placed on the market before 11 December 2027"
Products must be sold with a "secure by default" config, with automated security patching enabled by default (opt-out), with reporting on possible unauthorised access, with data collection minimization (tie-in to GDPR), with an SBOM, with dedicated security testing, with public disclosure of vulnerabilities, …
With that perspective, how do you prevent scope creep when preparing a census exercise? You would collect everything and the shape of each house's kitchen sink, because "it can be useful".
The United States are listed as a secular state (ie. it "is or purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion")
Edit: As I research a bit further, I have stumbled upon an interesting counterargument [1] that enumeration of ethnicity and ethnic groups results in "more political discrimination and state-sponsored violence targeting ethnic groups". Perhaps a similar conclusion could be reached about religious census information.
> I think the industry is optimizing for the wrong thing.
Indeed: The industry optimizes for speed, time to market, and features, and applies the ostrich model to everything that doesn't bring short-time revenue (security considerations, accessibility, vendor lock-in, interoperability, …)
This has been going on for as long as the industry exists, and now we start to have the proper tools to assess the damage and understand the brittleness of it all.