Live data from Hacker News

Startup Mistakes: Choice of Datastore

stavros.io

31–40 of 119 posts

Re: Startup Mistakes: Choice of Datastore

#31
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. This article typifies premature optimisation. If MongoDB lets you prototype faster, then use it until you have enough paying customers to warrant a refactor.

I think you're greatly underestimating both the effort of changing a datastore from under a live application and the free time developers in a startup have.

Oh, wait. So you should actually think about what you're trying to build and what would work best for it? I just read this hilarious blog post that said the opposite. This is all too hard, I'll just use Postgres(R).

Re: Startup Mistakes: Choice of Datastore

#32
post #29

TL;DR: "just use Postgres"

TL;DR: "just use an MySQL or Postgres or SQLite"

Don't use SQLite for production, for all the love I have for it, the client libraries are usually locking accesses and don't work properly with concurrent reads/writes.

Re: Startup Mistakes: Choice of Datastore

#35
post #2

Just pick something and build an MVP with it. Then get on with the hard part of finding paying customers. You can fix the bad tech decisions later. Without customers it won't matter which database you used before your startup failed.

Agree! Most of us techies think tech is more important than sales. We also loathe bad design decisions. But your customers (in most cases) don't care! But I always wonder exactly "what" is easier with mongo or another NoSQL db. Just get a relation db like PostgreSQL, MySQL or SQLite for that matter. If your site starts to get performance problems go to the pub, celebrate a bit of success and then optimise!

Yup, people stuck on optimising (or overthinking which datastore to use) before actually having a business are missing the point.

Re: Startup Mistakes: Choice of Datastore

#37

I feel like MongoDB/NoSQL is a horse that's been beaten so much in the last few years that no one is actually making that choice nowadays. Hasn't everyone already learned to stick with Postgres?

Unfortunately, the horse is not quite dead enough

If anyone remembers the most prominent and convincing articles on this topic, I would love to share that with my team

Re: Startup Mistakes: Choice of Datastore

#39
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're greatly underestimating both the effort of changing a datastore from under a live application and the free time developers in a startup have.

Oh, wait. So you should actually think about what you're trying to build and what would work best for it? I just read this hilarious blog post that said the opposite. This is all too hard, I'll just use Postgres(R).

By "Said the oppposite" do you mean this part?:

> Think before you pick a database. If you insist on not thinking, pick PostgreSQL. Trust me.

Post reply on HN