S3 is files, but not a filesystem (via) Cal Paterson helps some concepts click into place for me: S3 imitates a file system but has a number of critical missing features, the most important of which is the lack of partial updates. Any time you want to modify even a few bytes in a file you have to upload and overwrite the entire thing. Almost every database system is dependent on partial updates to function, which is why there are so few databases that can use S3 directly as a backend storage mechanism.
Recent articles
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 is probably the "best coding model in the world" (at least for now) - 29th September 2025
- I think "agent" may finally have a widely enough agreed upon definition to be useful jargon now - 18th September 2025
- My review of Claude's new Code Interpreter, released under a very confusing name - 9th September 2025