Falcon is NOT
an InnoDB clone
Firebird
a Firebird clone
a standalone database management management system
Netfrastructure
Jim's been at this for a long time, there have been some changes since he wrote his first database at DEC:
Uni-processors to multi-core
CPU performance from 1.7 to 42000 MPS
Address space from 32-bit to 64-bit
Memory speed from 1 micro to 7 nanoseconds
Memory from 2mb to 4GB
Disk access has gone from 20 ms to 7 ms
back then 100 users was big, now 100,000 users is a small application
RDMSs moved from decision support -> OLTP -> Data mining -> Web
DBAs are smarter and they are harder to find
Application programmers skill levels are down, using higher-level languages
Expert design means appearance, not architecture
Applications have much larger databases, more queries per human interaction, fewer rows per results set, latency is more critical, blobs are much larger (more important), and search without context.