Question 1

How does Shards compare to standard ETS for read-heavy loads?

Accepted Answer

Shards may introduce overhead for reads due to distributed queries across shards, whereas standard ETS is faster for read-only or low-write scenarios where lock contention isn't an issue. Use Shards primarily when write concurrency is the bottleneck.

Question 2

How to install and configure Shards in an Elixir project?

Accepted Answer

Add `{:shards, "~> 1.1"}` to your mix.exs deps, then replace ETS calls with Shards functions; the README provides a getting started guide for minimal setup. Configuration like shard count can be adjusted via environment variables or application config.

Question 3

What are the trade-offs when using Shards for caching?

Accepted Answer

Shards improves write scalability for caching but can increase memory usage and read latency. It's best for write-heavy caches; for read-heavy caches, standard ETS or other optimizations might be more efficient.

Question 4

Can Shards be used with distributed Erlang nodes?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but distributed support requires the separate shards_dist library. Shards itself focuses on local sharding, so you need to integrate shards_dist for cross-node functionality, as noted in the important links section.

Question 5

Is Shards compatible with all ETS table types?

Accepted Answer

Shards aims for full ETS API compatibility, but edge cases might exist with less common table types or operations. It's recommended to test specific use cases, as the library is a wrapper on top of standard ETS.

Question 6

Shards or Nebulex for caching in Elixir?

Accepted Answer

Shards is a lower-level sharding library for ETS, while Nebulex is a higher-level caching framework that can use Shards as a backend. Choose Shards for direct ETS scaling; Nebulex for a full-featured cache with multi-adapter support.

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