RethinkDB, SageMath, Andreessen-Horowitz, Basecamp and Open Source Software

In the case of RethinkDB I wish they had started Horizon much sooner. Having plugins like for Stripe will make Horizon usable in the real world. I certainly like the goal set for Horizon that it be easy to extend a Horizon app by embedding it in a Node app. I just found the lack of step by step tutorial and several examples frustrating.

I've just started learning about business stuff. I've gone to three Seattle Lean Startup events. I've learned a lot. Two key things I've learned that are helping me are make a working engine before raising money so that money is just gas and focus on making something that people pay for.

Being involved in SMC I'm very glad that VC hasn't been taken. I'm not convinced that VC would make things much better.

RethinkDB is amazing software and a real breakthrough. And the audience of deep thinking people who can really leverage the event model is ... limited. Today.

MongoDB is no breakthrough, but there are legions of people who just want to plug something together with PHP or Node. Given what they're doing, it works fine.

I sincerely hope Rethink can turn into a vibrant open source project and I'm willing to donate money to that. Given sufficient time, the world will learn to use it. And until then, it will grant superpowers to people willing to invest a little effort to understand and leverage it.

Mongo was "there" first and generated a lot of hype through sales and marketing. For a while and probably still now, a lot of Hackathons at college campuses are sponsored by Mongo and you can usually get a prize for using Mongo in your project.

Rethink never marketed themselves too much—it was one of those things you found out about in HN or from another dev.

I'm clueless about business stuff so I don't mean to say Rethink should've marketed heavily like Mongo did, but that's definitely a factor. I also think Rethink should've done Horizon earlier and offered paid hosting/deployment for it and Rethink users.

Mobile is the most common use case for a real-time DB. They didn't provide good iOS and Android integration. Technically Rethink is superior to Firebase, but Firebase is more successful.