Where is the database?

I have just watched an interesting conversation between Martin Fowler and Badri Janakiraman about #hexagonalrails, and in particular about the role of databases. The central question in the discussion is whether the database should be considered outside or inside the domain. While watching, I realised I had had similar thoughts in 2005!

In recent years I have considered databases to be always outside the domain. I can definitely see the attraction of an “always present” domain model, but I think it is conflating different points of view, and misunderstanding the point of Hexagonal Architecture. I was wrong in 2005 :)

The comments on the video are very interesting, particularly those by Alistair Cockburn. Specifically he makes two key points:

[There is no] debate of whether the persistence is in or out in HA, it is out. So you should say you chose not to use that piece of HA, not that you used it but brought the db inside.
the purpose of HA is the configurable link t0 db

By forcing ourselves to keep to database outside of the domain we respect the hexagonal symmetry , and this is the only way to guarantee complete separation of concerns. The choice of Active Record or Data Mapper then becomes a decision about how to implement the “configurable database” port/adapter.