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Why Did So Many Startups Choose MongoDB?

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Re: Why Did So Many Startups Choose MongoDB?

#131

Post by nasalgoat »

joeblau wrote: post #16

Back in 2012 I worked at a startup and we had a few backend data stores (Vertica, Postgres, Redis, Big Table, MySQL, Cassandra, ElasticSearch, Hadoop). When 10gen came along, they sold us an amazing vision. We were processing 500 million to billion social media messages a day and they sold us on this dream that we would have very fast writes, a cluster of 9 machines in master-slave-slave config for fail over. We woul…

I think the worst part about MongoDB in that timeframe was the poor CPU utilization since it was single threaded.

In order to leverage the multiple CPUs in a box you'd need to run multiple instances of mongo on the same machine and we designed a whole system around sandboxing instances.

But then you'd run into memory allocation issues and how badly it would handle indexing and handle running out of memory, which mostly involved crashing.

We ended up having to run about 100 bare-metal servers to support what would probably have been a level of queries about 10 PostgreSQL boxes could handle easily.

Truly a terrible DB.

Re: Why Did So Many Startups Choose MongoDB?

#132

Post by raarts »

threepipeproblm wrote: post #48
mattacular wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is PHP a terrible language? It powers a vast part of the internet including sites huge, tiny, and everything in between. It's in vogue to hate on PHP especially here on HN. Language hate based on some sort of popularity contest is silly and language snobbery wont be tolerated at any company worth its salt (read: NOT most startups)

This lack of insight is why PHP developers have lower average salaries than non-PHP developers. If you think PHP is looked down on by those who care about language features because of a popularity context, rather than because of asinine language decisions and limited support for modern programming paradigms, I think it's you who is missing it. Since any program can technically be written in any (Turing Complete) lang…

Programmers discussing languages is like carpenters discussing screwdrivers.

Re: Why Did So Many Startups Choose MongoDB?

#133

Post by joatmon-snoo »

joeblau wrote: post #16

Back in 2012 I worked at a startup and we had a few backend data stores (Vertica, Postgres, Redis, Big Table, MySQL, Cassandra, ElasticSearch, Hadoop). When 10gen came along, they sold us an amazing vision. We were processing 500 million to billion social media messages a day and they sold us on this dream that we would have very fast writes, a cluster of 9 machines in master-slave-slave config for fail over. We woul…

But... Kafka isn't a database?...

Re: Why Did So Many Startups Choose MongoDB?

#134

Post by reitanqild »

bluedino wrote: post #60
gautamdivgi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm too old now... but SQL is relational algebra translated into some sort of code/language. I did a lot of SQL & relational algebra for my undergrad databases class [which was about 20 years ago now]. Has SQL/DBs been phased out of CS education? Just genuinely curious...

I have an intern who's bout to graduate from a state university and has taken 0 classes on the implementation of compilers or databases. Java, Java. Java.

Sounds like me 10 - 15 years ago.

I'd say don't worry: I almost never use anything I learned in school.

The Java was to shallow as was lots of other stuff.

School is just there to convince your first few employers so you can het a chance to see how it is actually done.

Oh, and to give you the credentials to stop annoying sales guys that are about to convince your boss that "you need Active Directory because your network is slow". (Guys company had botched a certain server install and tried to solve it by selling even mire stuff. )

Re: Why Did So Many Startups Choose MongoDB?

#135

Post by scrumper »

gautamdivgi wrote: post #53
rubyn00bie wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess... SQL is a lot for newcomers to grasp on top of learning the rest of their stack. The appeal of "no schema" is most likely what gets them as it seems easier than SQL. Simple things at first seem daunting like: constraints, joins, and indexes. What they fail to see is that doing these database level things in the application layer becomes the final level hell and you get to live it. People also undervalue th…

Maybe I'm too old now... but SQL is relational algebra translated into some sort of code/language. I did a lot of SQL & relational algebra for my undergrad databases class [which was about 20 years ago now]. Has SQL/DBs been phased out of CS education? Just genuinely curious...

Late 1990s: 68k assembler, relational algebra taught via SQL, Prolog, C, and some Ada. And astard hard discrete maths, logic, and formal methods.

Red brick Russell Group British university, not prestigious.

Re: Why Did So Many Startups Choose MongoDB?

#136

Post by ivm »

Our team had little experience with backends in 2013 and a fear that it will be hard to scale game servers in case of success (players hate lags and downtimes).

So we followed the hype of Node.js and MongoDB because everybody was saying how it's easy to scale them compared to the established tech.

Re: Why Did So Many Startups Choose MongoDB?

#137

Post by RaleyField »

mattacular wrote: post #9
owebmaster wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MongoDB is like the PHP of databases. I started programming PHP and currently I bash it every time I can, because it is a terrible language. But it is easy to start and do cool stuff, just like mongodb. Initial traction is more important than initial architecture, I guess.

Why is PHP a terrible language? It powers a vast part of the internet including sites huge, tiny, and everything in between. It's in vogue to hate on PHP especially here on HN. Language hate based on some sort of popularity contest is silly and language snobbery wont be tolerated at any company worth its salt (read: NOT most startups)

> It powers a vast part of the internet including sites huge, tiny, and everything in between.

It's more like those vast parts of the internet are working despite PHP. Why do you think Windows is powering vast numbers of desktops? It's not for its technical excellency. ;)

Re: Why Did So Many Startups Choose MongoDB?

#138

Post by lod723 »

diziet wrote: post #21

Any criticism of MongoDB that does not acknowledge WiredTiger and the plethora of positive changes that made MongoDB much, much better in the 3.0, 3.2 and 3.4 releases is criticism that is not fully thought out. It's like complaining getting graphic cards working because of drivers is difficult on Ubuntu, based on experience with linux in 2005.

You realize that this sounds like more of the same hype to anyone who was burned by the overpromising in the 1.x and 2.x days? Whether your statement about 3.x is true or not, the MongoDB people dug their own hole that they need to try extra hard to get out of, and so far it's not enough.

Re: Why Did So Many Startups Choose MongoDB?

#139

Post by [deleted] »

diziet wrote: post #21

Any criticism of MongoDB that does not acknowledge WiredTiger and the plethora of positive changes that made MongoDB much, much better in the 3.0, 3.2 and 3.4 releases is criticism that is not fully thought out. It's like complaining getting graphic cards working because of drivers is difficult on Ubuntu, based on experience with linux in 2005.

[deleted]

Re: Why Did So Many Startups Choose MongoDB?

#140

Post by RaleyField »

sandrob57 wrote: post #66
threepipeproblm wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This lack of insight is why PHP developers have lower average salaries than non-PHP developers. If you think PHP is looked down on by those who care about language features because of a popularity context, rather than because of asinine language decisions and limited support for modern programming paradigms, I think it's you who is missing it. Since any program can technically be written in any (Turing Complete) lang…

You're not wrong, but those articles are 5+ years old and PHP has changed A LOT in recent years — especially since the release of v7. Still, that's not going to do much to change public perception, and I guess that's somewhat fair. PHP has earned it's reputation, even if many (but not all) criticism are now largely dated. I'm just happy I switched to working on other languages, aside from the occasional Laravel-based…

> PHP has changed A LOT in recent years — especially since the release of v7.

I was curious and wanted to see if that is the case. So I checked for the most basic thing. The arrow notation for lambdas. Surely they must've added that by now. Surely they must've added that before Java did. Nope, still RFC. Now I wonder if it's idiomatic to pass those "long form" lambdas around when writing in functional style or is it something nobody does. In any event this little discovery makes me think parent's sentiment seems to be still justified.

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