# "Do you really need a database?"

**URL:** <https://forum.elixirforum.com/t/do-you-really-need-a-database/4567>\
**Category:** Discussions\
**Tags:** otp, phoenix, discussion\
**Created:** [April 11, 2017, 9:03am UTC](https://forum.elixirforum.com/t/do-you-really-need-a-database/4567 "2017-04-11T09:03:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 20

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**Author:** ![easco](https://forum.elixirforum.com/user_avatar/forum.elixirforum.com/easco/32/1250_2.png) [@easco](https://forum.elixirforum.com/u/easco)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2017, 5:27pm UTC](https://forum.elixirforum.com/t/do-you-really-need-a-database/4567/20 "2017-04-12T17:27:36Z")

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A bit off topic, but -

> All of these things can be represented as prosesses and communicate via messaging. A batch of a given recipe would have a brewdate and so forth.

Be very careful here. If I’m reading your remarks correctly, it sounds like you are trying to model entities as processes (a practice with a “bad smell” common to Object Oriented programmers, myself included, who move into the functional world).

If that’s the case I would recommend reading [To Spawn, or not to Spawn?](http://theerlangelist.com/article/spawn_or_not). There are other, similar articles on the web.

I’m not saying “don’t do that” but give it some careful thought.

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