Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MongoDB shares jump more than 30% in $192M IPO

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 425 posts

Re: MongoDB shares jump more than 30% in $192M IPO

#161

Post by erik14th »

andrewmutz wrote: post #145
blauditore wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know there's quite some aversion to NoSQL around here, and generally I don't care much as I'm seldomly dealing directly with databases. But recently, I've been exposed to a fairly big and complex SQL one with several references between entities and lots, lots of X_has_Y tables. This makes me think that with growing complexity (which seems to be a general trend), NoSQL databases seem more practical at some point, or…

I don't think the HN community is averse to NoSQL solutions, but is averse to MongoDB in particular.

Everyone here seems to love Postgres and hate on Mongo, I have no technical knowledge to compare the two, so IMO a lot of that love and hate is more towards the "project attitude", MongoDB is a suit, a sellout, with bullshit marketing and all Postgres is like some roots hippie, that cares a lot more about technical values and neglects marketing.

Re: MongoDB shares jump more than 30% in $192M IPO

#162

Post by munk-a »

VintageCool wrote: post #146
pja wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m told they absolutely flooded tech meetups in the SV area and with advertorial talks - talks on NoSQL (that just happened to use MongoDB of course), lots of FUD about SQL vs. NoSQL etc etc. I’ve no idea to what extent this was true, or if it was whether it was their main marketing approach, but it might have been quite an effective strategy: talks at meetups are often 'trusted' to a greater extent than other ways…

MongoDB was huge at hackathons, too. People could implement an app in a weekend using MongoDB because it had no integrity checks and none of its drawbacks manifest themselves in the first two days of development.

I totally get this, but a hackathon is a one time software build and you don't need to lean heavily on a schema if you've only got one state your data has ever existed in, MongoDB is great for templating like this.

However, when it comes to writing software that's meant to survive changes and versions the schema ends up providing a safety net that ensures you can ignore the data that exists and assume that the structure described by your schema is consistent. Data integrity is key to maintainability and those constraints are what keep your data clean.

Re: MongoDB shares jump more than 30% in $192M IPO

#163

Post by takeda »

bfrog wrote: post #43

Mongo is a marketing company for a mediocre product, but no doubt they're damn good at marketing it.

They're also f*ing annoying. One of their sales people was bugging me for 2-3 weeks sending e-mail nearly every day. He even subscribed me to their mailing lists without my permission.

Re: MongoDB shares jump more than 30% in $192M IPO

#165

Post by qaq »

bad_user wrote: post #147
Jach wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm continuously amazed when I hear about mongodb in use. Not over say postgres, I get that there are nosql advantages, but over literally any other nosql option. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law is the term you're looking for...

In general NoSQL solutions are optimized for certain use-cases at the detriment of others. If you're looking for a general purpose database, then RDBMSs like PostgreSQL are your best bet. So that said, when comparing NoSQL solutions, ending up with an apples versus oranges comparison is almost inevitable.

The funny thing is PG will outperform most NoSQL solutions as NoSQL store for vast majority of use cases.

Re: MongoDB shares jump more than 30% in $192M IPO

#166

Post by pja »

VintageCool wrote: post #146
pja wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m told they absolutely flooded tech meetups in the SV area and with advertorial talks - talks on NoSQL (that just happened to use MongoDB of course), lots of FUD about SQL vs. NoSQL etc etc. I’ve no idea to what extent this was true, or if it was whether it was their main marketing approach, but it might have been quite an effective strategy: talks at meetups are often 'trusted' to a greater extent than other ways…

MongoDB was huge at hackathons, too. People could implement an app in a weekend using MongoDB because it had no integrity checks and none of its drawbacks manifest themselves in the first two days of development.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that they seeded the hackathons with ringers too: Devs on payroll that turned up & implemented a website/app in a weekend that naturally 'just happened' to use MongoDB.

Makes you wonder what other meetup/hackathon visible tech is really covert marketing...

Re: MongoDB shares jump more than 30% in $192M IPO

#167

Post by takeda »

Jare wrote: post #148
takeda wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it all comes down to what definition is of solving a problem. What Mongo did is implementing these features just well enough so they can put checkpoint in their marketing brochures. When you actually start using it you learn that most of it is either performing slow, does not work correctly or once in a while corrupts your data. Yes they hit these points hard, but only from marketing point of view. They are n…

> Yes they hit these points hard, but only from marketing point of view MongoDB serviced one of my projects for 5 years without a single hitch. It did everything I wanted it to do, it did it well, it did it exactly as advertised (no more, no less), and it did it right when I needed it. It never stopped improving during those years, massively in some aspects. The company behind it only grew stronger during those years…

Based on my experience, your use case was simple enough that any database would do just fine.

Re: MongoDB shares jump more than 30% in $192M IPO

#168

Post by Drdrdrq »

Jare wrote: post #148
takeda wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it all comes down to what definition is of solving a problem. What Mongo did is implementing these features just well enough so they can put checkpoint in their marketing brochures. When you actually start using it you learn that most of it is either performing slow, does not work correctly or once in a while corrupts your data. Yes they hit these points hard, but only from marketing point of view. They are n…

> Yes they hit these points hard, but only from marketing point of view MongoDB serviced one of my projects for 5 years without a single hitch. It did everything I wanted it to do, it did it well, it did it exactly as advertised (no more, no less), and it did it right when I needed it. It never stopped improving during those years, massively in some aspects. The company behind it only grew stronger during those years…

My experience too, 6 years. Never been a fanboy, but don't understand the hate either. MongoDB never surprised me, the tradeoffs were known in advance (at least the ones that mattered to me).

Re: MongoDB shares jump more than 30% in $192M IPO

#169

Post by nemothekid »

derefr wrote: post #108
enjo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is an interesting story. They aren't best in class in any of the metrics we think of as mattering. It's not the highest scale system out there. It's not the most durable. Or the most available. Hell it's not even particularly reliable (at least throughout its history). It is however..simple. Very simple. It's easy to reason about. It's easy to setup. For 90% of use cases it's very easy to administer. It tur…

> It is however..simple. Very simple. It's easy to reason about. It's easy to setup. For 90% of use cases it's very easy to administer. I think most of HN would feel this way about, say, Redis. And Redis isn't "highest scale" or "most durable" or "most available" either. (Though it is pretty reliable.) It's interesting, then, to compare the general impression people here have to MongoDB to the one they have of Redis.…

Redis makes very different promises than mongodb. Redis has always documented how exactly persistence works and how you could lose data. Redis' benchmarks arent dishonest. Redis isn't marketed as a SQL replacement nor as a primary data store.

Re: MongoDB shares jump more than 30% in $192M IPO

#170

Post by acdha »

erik14th wrote: post #161
andrewmutz wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the HN community is averse to NoSQL solutions, but is averse to MongoDB in particular.

Everyone here seems to love Postgres and hate on Mongo, I have no technical knowledge to compare the two, so IMO a lot of that love and hate is more towards the "project attitude", MongoDB is a suit, a sellout, with bullshit marketing and all Postgres is like some roots hippie, that cares a lot more about technical values and neglects marketing.

I think most of it was a reaction to the massive marketing push Mongo made. There were so many years of people hyping it as the answer to all of your data storage needs, followed by accounts of users hitting bugs or reimplementing most of a SQL database in code, and the promised performance benefits either didn't materialize or hadn't been necessary in the first place (“web scale” turned out to mean only dozens to hundreds of requests per second for many apps).

Meanwhile, Postgres was quietly plugging away adding new features and continuing to deliver solid performance for a wider range of workloads, including better performance on JSON document storage.

Post reply on HN