# Cleaned-Up Transcript of Rich Hickey's Talk "Deconstructing the Database" · GitHub
## Metadata
- Author: [[Gist]]
- Full Title: Cleaned-Up Transcript of Rich Hickey's Talk "Deconstructing the Database" · GitHub
- Category: #articles
- URL: https://gist.github.com/HerbCaudill/acf2294dac8e87e24f550715b6991035
## Highlights
What's usually missing is an **information model**. By an information model, I mean the ability to store facts, to not have things replace other things in place, to have some temporal notion to what's being stored. That's what I would consider a true information model, and that's usually missing from the databases. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grwn8hnret09mqkcpcgv5m40))
The biggest one by far is definitely the state model. The fact that it's update-in-place. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grwn9pp4wz3v9st111jb2ytk))
To move to an information model means to move to a data model that is fundamentally about facts. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grwnafntrs1e0g3pyvw3eh4w))
A **datom** is just an *entity*, an *attribute*, and a *value*, and then some *temporal* component. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grwnc5dsq6adjs7tmmnb184b))
It only expands; it only grows outward. It grows by **accretion of facts**. We're just going to add more facts. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grwndy9rxzz87gx18qt2774h))
We're going to say, we can represent novelty, but just as *assertions or retractions of facts*. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grwnfk0xdx3vkrbhn5fj2cpy))
reify ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grwngsgxjr84ngj16tjyg5kw))
- Note: In this context, reify means to make something real or concrete by giving it tangible form or structure.
## New highlights added June 11, 2024 at 2:18 PM
We don't care about it — we care a lot more about putting data into memory, and having good locality in the way we do that. But if we actually have to touch the disk, we're losing anyway. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hz0nanctpmn5x6cjs72drm9s))