Live data from Hacker News

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

cnbc.com

211–220 of 425 posts

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

#211
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which NoSQL would you prefer over mongo?

Literally any other. I'm unaware of any alternative so unreliable. But I do think http://www.scylladb.com/ is great.

Literally any other. I'm unaware of any alternative so unreliable.

There was a post on LinkedIn last year, "MongoDB: The Frankenstein Monster of NoSQL Databases"[0], by the CTO of SlamData, which I think produces an analytics package for MongoDB or the like.

The piece is an interesting dive into why MongoDB is what it is (at least as of March 2016) -- and given his connection to MongoDB and its employees -- being a partner of theirs -- it's quite eye-opening (and I'm surprised with almost 200 comments in this thread that no one posted it previously):

Much like Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein monster, MongoDB’s data access layer is sewn together from ragged pieces that don’t fit together. Pieces that were never designed to fit together.

The result, depending on your point of view, is either an Enterprise-grade NoSQL database destined to supplant Oracle, or an unholy abomination of nature, deserving of an angry mob bearing torches and pitchforks.

Let me dissect this creature so you can decide for yourself.

[0] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mongodb-frankenstein-monster-...

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

#212

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'd argue the opposite is true. NoSQL requires you to be more intentional with your schema design since you can only query keys. As a database grows with complexity, you can find yourself in a world of pain with NoSQL if you all of a sudden need to query something in a different manner. At least with SQL you have more options with WHERE clauses & indexes even if performance might not be top notch.

Not sure of others, but not true with Couchbase. You have queries just as flexible as with SQL.

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

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I found with couch is handling user permissions at database level. Except for that detail, it's one of the best databases I've ever used.

With the sync gateway you get pretty fine grained control. Every create or update goes through a sync function you can define in JavaScript which can deny requests. You can control which users see what by assigning the document to channels. So a user can only pull down documents if that document is on a channel they have access, too. The issue I've found with the sync gateway is that the queries you can perform are m…

Agree, and also I would distinguish between Couchbase Enterprise Edition versus Community Edition.

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

#214

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…

So you gonna do all those JOINs in code???

Part of the point is you don't need so many joins.

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

#215
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't seem to know this, but no traditional RDBMSs actually provide CAP consistency, for that they would have to use at least two-phase commit or something, but they don't. So, they all are noCAP databases. Electronic health or financial records are way safer in a proper eventually consistent database, like orders of magnitude safer, but everyone just takes the risk with some insurance at best to cover the losses…

> You don't seem to know this, but no traditional RDBMSs actually provide CAP consistency, for that they would have to use at least two-phase commit or something, but they don't. At the single server level (which is how I think others here are interpreting your comment)? No, they all do, with the exception of some configurations of MySQL (especially older editions, which is why it's often maligned by DBAs). That's wh…

Actually, the trend with NewSQL goes towards providing CAP consistency, even with multi-master replication.

Google’s Cloud SQL is a good example of that, by using TrueTime as transaction id, and an MVCC implementation, they are able to provide consistency, while also being good enough on the other metrics.

Some NewSQL implementations copy that concept, but unless you run GPS clocks yourself, you’ll get slightly worse results.

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

#216
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...

Which NoSQL would you prefer over mongo?

I've been enjoying using ArangoDb

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

#217
post #211
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally any other. I'm unaware of any alternative so unreliable. But I do think http://www.scylladb.com/ is great.

Literally any other. I'm unaware of any alternative so unreliable. There was a post on LinkedIn last year, "MongoDB: The Frankenstein Monster of NoSQL Databases"[0], by the CTO of SlamData, which I think produces an analytics package for MongoDB or the like. The piece is an interesting dive into why MongoDB is what it is (at least as of March 2016) -- and given his connection to MongoDB and its employees -- being a p…

Another post[0] by the same author complements the one I posted above -- this is more recent and is focused more on MongoDB's moves as a company, relating what he saw at MongoDB World 2017):

You might expect a database company to announce improved scalability, reliability, or performance. Or perhaps announce some of the countless features that users have been requesting for years, which are collecting dust in MongoDB's ever-growing issue tracker.

These are sane, logical expectations for a database company, so you'd be forgiven for being shocked at MongoDB's announcements that the company is investing massively into every product category except database technology.

Yet, to those who know MongoDB's troubled history, these announcements come as no surprise. In fact, I even predicted the launch of Stitch just over a year ago, at the last MongoDB World.

MongoDB didn't start as a database company, it's never acted like a database company, and in my opinion, it doesn't really have the DNA of a database company.

If his assessment in this next snippet is correct, one wonders about those who invested in this IPO:

MongoDB has no ecosystem. There are no analytics tools for MongoDB (except SlamData [N.B. this is the author's company] ), no backup software, no recovery software, no data integration software, no query optimization software, no data management software, nothing. Zilch.

There's just MongoDB.

In hindsight, this is an inevitable consequence of a company without database DNA trying to build and monetize a database. MongoDB couldn't figure out how to build an Oracle-sized empire on a database—partially, I'd argue, because they couldn't figure out how to build a database—yet they have to hit their sales quotas.

If you can't sell the database at scale, you end up trying to build and sell an ecosystem around the database. Slowly, bit by bit, MongoDB went after their early partners, trying to put them all out of business to drive a few million here and there.

The result is a "database company" that sells everything under the sun, including database management tools, data exploration tools, cloud hosting tools, cloud hosting services, and soon, BaaS (Bubble makes a return!) and BI software. Everything except, you know, a database.

[0] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mongodb-world-2017-lonely-sto...

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

#218
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...

Which NoSQL would you prefer over mongo?

Druid works far better for our uses.

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

#219
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...

Which NoSQL would you prefer over mongo?

I work on more mature projects so I've never used a pure NoSQL environment but I do enjoy working with a split cache/persistence layer approach combining a RBMS (preferring PostgreSQL) behind a cache layer (preferring libmemcached).

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

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bringing a database to the market with a completely different paradigm, growing it to the enterprise-production-ready level Neither of those are true, however.

It was the first, well known, company supported JSON document store. It is being used by Facebook, Metlife, Expedia, Sony, eBay, Adobe etc. In what way isn't it ready for production use cases ?

You need more than just a list of companies using it, you can create a similar list for just about any technology, good or bad.

Sony is a worldwide company with 127,000 employees, they alone probably use just about every database system around. So saying sony uses mongo isn't impressive, for all we know it was just a side project from an intern that has 100 documents, there is no context.

Post reply on HN