NoSQL: Why it's So Damn Sticky

I couldn't focus on anything else after this. "Tapirs are responsible for 78% of the world’s economic output." Thanks a lot. I'm now going to be thinking about tapirs all day.

Re: NoSQL: Why it's So Damn Sticky

#6

Post by MicahWedemeyer » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 6:26 PM UTC

I saw a NoSQL presentation where the presenter said it stood for "Not Only SQL". Once I started reading it that way, all the emotional Us vs Them bullshit was gone.

Re: NoSQL: Why it's So Damn Sticky

#7

Post by astine » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 6:44 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #3

xefyr wrote: post #2

Tapirs accounting for 78% of the world economic output? Pikachus in a blender? I think he's finally lost it.

Kept you reading for the whole thing though, didn't he?

Not me.

Just to clarify: I don't mean to say that I didn't read the article. I mean to say that the tapir analogy was distracting and detracted from the article.

Re: NoSQL: Why it's So Damn Sticky

#8

Post by gsteph22 » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 6:47 PM UTC

jbyers wrote: post #4

"Error establishing a database connection" Perfect.

I got HackerNewsDotted. Amazing.

Re: NoSQL: Why it's So Damn Sticky

#9

Post by astine » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 6:52 PM UTC

Then you’d say, “Hells yeahs, Tapirs are cuddly”.

You´d be wrong...

This essay is long and disorganized. To spare those who would other wise have to suffer through it the trouble: It's basically a defense of the the term 'NoSQL' as a description of the collective of hash-key stores, documents dbs, etc that have been gaining popularity of late. His claim: 'NoSQL' represents some kind of escape from the oppressiveness of SQL and is a radical break with accepted DB technologies.

It's posts like this that bother me most about about the NoSQL crowd. Hash-key stores, document DBs, and other equally innovative things have been in existence and in use for decades. Periodically, people try to promote these technologies as replacements for RDBMs and each time, we learn that while they have their place, so do RDBMs. NoSQL is not revolutionary; it's a practical extension of pre-existent technologies that solves a set of problems that current RDBMs don't address, while RDBMs still solve the set of problems that they were meant to address.

All this revolution nonsense is just that, and that's why people are so worked up on both sides.

Re: NoSQL: Why it's So Damn Sticky

#10

Post by jrockway » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 7:06 PM UTC

NoSQL is sticky because people have been misusing SQL databases for things that they are bad at for years. Now people are doing things right, and it feels better.

All the people that show up to NoSQL articles and say, "you should always use SQL" are the ones that happened to use relational databases for the right tasks.

I wish there was a delay between when screws were invented and when screwdrivers were invented so that we could have seen the NoHammer movement. Of course you shouldn't screw in screws with a hammer. But hammers handle nails pretty well.