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

281–290 of 425 posts

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

#281

Post by philliphaydon »

HodGreeley wrote: post #212
mi100hael wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One of the reasons I love PostgreSQLs jsonb type is you get the power of relational database and power of (nosql?) Document database at the same time. i haven’t run into any query I couldn’t write against a jsonb doc. Granted dot notation on json would be nicer than ‘prop’ > ‘prop’ > ‘prop’, but I don’t feel limited.

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

#282

Post by philliphaydon »

manigandham wrote: post #274

As usual, the confusion and religious comments are numerous. There is no such thing as "nosql". There are different types of databases, with traditional relational being useful for 95% of scenarios (especially on increasingly fast servers with decent replication features) while the rest of the time something more specific is needed. SQL is just an interface, obviously common to relational databases but can be applied…

Marten > RavenDB!

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

#283

Post by protomyth »

mi100hael wrote: post #128

> "Most applications today run on a database technology that was introduced in the 1970s," Ittycheria said. "In the '70s, I was using a rotary phone to have a phone conversation. So people are looking for a modern, scalable and flexible platform." It's like a weird version of the Turing test where you have to decide whether someone's speaking seriously or in jest when they talk about NoSQL. https://www.youtube.com/wa…

Worse, the lack of awareness in how a phone system works by picking the phone type as opposed to the actual network is a perfect superficial understanding of technology that dovetails into the video way too nicely.

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

#284

Post by KGIII »

rosser wrote: post #209
milkytron wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cassandra is a pretty good alternative if you're looking for excellent write speeds and scalability.

We're using Cassandra at scale (~1M concurrent users at peak). It is, in our experience, an absolutely terrible piece of software. The development community doesn't seem to care about fixing bugs, and when they do fix things, they reliably introduce new, often devastating defects. "Move fast and break things" is unforgivable at the persistence layer. We're stuck using an ancient, unsupported version, because it is, p…

I am not a DBA, obviously. I did have to work as one, but that was a lot of years ago. So, pardon me if this is a dumb question.

You say you're stuck with it. Can't you just change a few things, shut down for a little while, export your data, and insert it into a new DB? I know it is hard to do it with writes happening at the same time, but it seems like you could freeze it as read only, extract the data, and put it into a DB that has been prepped ahead of time and tested.

I know we did this more than once BUT it wasn't with public facing data and we were able to migrate while still working on existing data. We just couldn't add more data while doing so.

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

#285

Post by KGIII »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #196
mi100hael wrote: post #128

> "Most applications today run on a database technology that was introduced in the 1970s," Ittycheria said. "In the '70s, I was using a rotary phone to have a phone conversation. So people are looking for a modern, scalable and flexible platform." It's like a weird version of the Turing test where you have to decide whether someone's speaking seriously or in jest when they talk about NoSQL. https://www.youtube.com/wa…

Yes dumb argument. That YouTube video was the first thing I thought of when I read the sentence. Let's scrap everything that was invented in the 70's or before.

I saw that.

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

#286

Post by KGIII »

gxs wrote: post #101
rburhum wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people forget that with startups, what you are trying to create is a business... the technology behind is only one element to it. It is extremely difficult to do good marketing and sales and they did it. Solve a customer problem while building a healthy business... a success story in my book.

Agree - I think there is a perception that if you build an awesome product it sells itself. There is so much work to running a successful business, especially at that scale. Marketing, Sales, Implementation, Support, on top of G&A, and that's not even touching on HR and retaining employees in a competitive market. There is a reason some people are known as the "business" guys, I think expertise in that area is underr…

Speculation: You were being downvoted because software types often express ideas that can be summed up as business is easy and the people doing the business aspects aren't important. They seem to think that everyone and anyone can do it and, when they hear success stories as examples, it reinforces those ideas.

A good example is some of the comments that software folks make about the sales department.

They are different skillsets and people have varied abilities in each. The business aspect is not actually easy. It is also not always done well. The software end isn't always done well, either.

My guess would be that is why you were being downvoted. I notice a number of votes are emotional in nature. They aren't based on logic. I see some that are most easily explained as, "I don't want to know." The comment is factual, not confrontational, and topical. The vote is still negative.

Meh... I don't mind it when it happens to me. I have karma to spare and don't actually make comments for the points. I say what I feel needs to be said and try to stick mostly within the guidelines. (I do meander off topic sometimes.)

But, no... I don't comment for the points. I comment for the replies and thoughts. They are usually quite brilliant and insightful.

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

#287

Post by sanderjd »

gxs wrote: post #101
rburhum wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people forget that with startups, what you are trying to create is a business... the technology behind is only one element to it. It is extremely difficult to do good marketing and sales and they did it. Solve a customer problem while building a healthy business... a success story in my book.

Agree - I think there is a perception that if you build an awesome product it sells itself. There is so much work to running a successful business, especially at that scale. Marketing, Sales, Implementation, Support, on top of G&A, and that's not even touching on HR and retaining employees in a competitive market. There is a reason some people are known as the "business" guys, I think expertise in that area is underr…

I didn't downvote you, but if I had, it would be because while you're right that building sales and marketing is difficult and doing so successfully is certainly admirable, another fundamentally important part of creating a successful software business is building a successful product. I suspect your downvoters don't believe that Mongo has actually done that part.

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

#288

Post by ragnarok451 »

john_moscow wrote: post #251

So instructions on making a successful company in 2017: 1. Spot a non-trivial expense type applicable to most Fortune 500 companies. 2. Make a startup offering the same thing under the cost. 3. Use your network to get sales people that personally know exec-level people from Fortune 500 and will pitch the product to them. 4. Get them to sign up. Of course they'll do, you're offering it under cost at the investors' exp…

To be fair, Average Joe's pension fund was probably invested in one of the VCs that who cashed out at the IPO too. So Average Joe likely still benefits at the end of the day.

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

#289

Post by sanderjd »

KGIII wrote: post #286
gxs wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree - I think there is a perception that if you build an awesome product it sells itself. There is so much work to running a successful business, especially at that scale. Marketing, Sales, Implementation, Support, on top of G&A, and that's not even touching on HR and retaining employees in a competitive market. There is a reason some people are known as the "business" guys, I think expertise in that area is underr…

Speculation: You were being downvoted because software types often express ideas that can be summed up as business is easy and the people doing the business aspects aren't important. They seem to think that everyone and anyone can do it and, when they hear success stories as examples, it reinforces those ideas. A good example is some of the comments that software folks make about the sales department. They are differ…

I did not downvote the parent comment, but I did downvote you, because I think your comment stereotypes "software types" in an unfair way. It is possible to both have a lot of respect for the difficulty of building the business side of an organization and for the folks who can do it well, and to think that it is unwise to build a business based mostly on sales and marketing without focusing enough on the quality of the product itself.

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

#290

Post by KGIII »

heliodor wrote: post #17

I don't understand why everyone is so happy when IPOs go up and make it sound like a good event. I see it as the founders needlessly missing out on 30% of money (in this case), which ends up going in the pockets of the Wall Street middle men that get first access to the stock offering.

I actually gambled on this one. I'd noticed the hype and read around this morning.

I didn't go in that big, but we will see. I bought 700 shares at $29.12, sometime around noon. I was a bit busy so didn't pay much attention to this thread, but they closed at a bit over $32.00.

I haven't yet set a mark to sell them. I do have it set to notify me I'd they go below 29.00 and will sell them all if they go below $24.00. Ideally, I'll keep the shares for a full year, at minimum.

I figured 20k isn't too much to risk, though I technically risk less than that because I will sell if they go below $24.

So, we shall see... We shall see... It is one of the rare times when I am betting against the folks on the tech forums. The commentary seems to be largely negative, concerning the software itself - I've never personally used it. I'm betting that the hype train will continue, regardless of it not being perfect in every way.

Post reply on HN