Guide to MongoDB for startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Guide to MongoDB for startups

#61

Post by AlisdairO » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 9:48 PM UTC

jasonmccay wrote: post #44

yukichan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aphyr has thoroughly explained what is wrong with MongoDB[1]. I'm quite sure that things aren't probably as swell with your tech stack you might imagine. A commenter here has in the past demonstrated how to cause someone using MongoDB data problems by sending too much information too quickly for MongoDB to handle in a targeted way although I can't find the link to it now. I have been wanting to try it myself to see i…

Aphyr did the same "Call Me Maybe" posts for other databases as well, highlighting their shortcomings. MongoDB has issues, but other databases have their rough edges as well. It all depends on how you use them. For a group of people that know nothing but hammers, screwdrivers don't make much sense. This feels often what these "bash Mongo" arguments sound like. There is no silver bullet. Just flippin' understand the t…

> Just flippin' understand the tool you are using and how to use it.

If people understand Mongo and its shortcomings, then fair enough. The thing is, those shortcomings are large and far-reaching, and the number of applications for which Mongo is a truly superior long-term choice are relatively few. It's my perception that when the hype around Mongo peaked there was an awful lot of ignorance surrounding the product - the current behaviour towards it is probably a reaction to that.

Re: Guide to MongoDB for startups

#62

Post by mkohlmyr » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 9:49 PM UTC

meritt wrote: post #35

mkohlmyr wrote: post #7

I find it somewhat depressing that the first comments on any post about MongoDB generally seem to be short, disparaging and dismissive without offering much if any substance. We use MongoDB in production, processing millions of new records every month and it works great. Our data has differing and evolving schemas and can be used as JavaScript objects or python dictionaries with little effort. It works and performs w…

> Which means processing huge amount of data. Which SQL databases were never designed for. When an article opens with a statement like it's difficult to give it much credence at that point. Unfortunately, this ignorance is very common among the MongoDB crowd. Like your example? millions of new records every month? That's not a "huge amount of data". We're adding tens of millions new records each day, into mysql, and…

Neither of the comments nor mine were specifically in relation to this particular article though.

Since I'm taking a few hits on "millions" I should perhaps clarify it's more like "hundreds of millions". Still obviously not a gigantic amount but certainly enough for me to be able to say that it is functional enough and robust enough as a database that a lot of the negativity is if not unwarranted, then at least excessive.

Re: Guide to MongoDB for startups

#63

Post by tel » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 10:12 PM UTC

lkrubner wrote: post #51

MongoDB offers the greatest benefit to those who have an evolving concept of their schema, and that tends to be startups, though I have worked in large firms that entirely re-invented their schemas. I worry that I would seem tedious if I listed the places that I have worked, and yet, on Hacker News, when I speak in abstract terms, I tend to get downvoted, so I will name a few specifics. I worked at Wine Spectator for…

Greater normalization allows for greater schema evolution. If you start treating your relations as stating known properties about entities then you can create new collections of known properties, track them through time, merge and extend these schema all non-destructively.

I don't think it requires a whole lot more thought that you ought to be putting into your Mongo "schemata" anyway.

Now that kind of usage of relational databases will destroy MySQL since it doesn't do clever query planning.

Re: Guide to MongoDB for startups

#64

Post by AdrianRossouw » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 11:17 PM UTC

jasonmccay wrote: post #53

bitcrusher wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're kinda all over the place trying to defend MongoDB... So, what is your stake in it? You like it? You have a lot of customers on it and you want to validate your decision? I'm just curious, because by my tastes, MongoDB is an awful database. It's like the PHP of Databases. It seems like there are a lot of better choices out there especially in the last few years.

Considering MongoDB has only been around for the "last few years", I think it is maturing well. You are certainly free to call it the PHP of Databases, but there are a lot of developers that have learned to use it and are quite happy with it. Seems like most on Hacker News spend more time telling them why they are stupid than actually understanding the tool. (Also, some guy by the name of Zuckerberg made a TON of mon…

what is mongodb for then. what is the use case where it is better than the other tools?

Re: Guide to MongoDB for startups

#65

Post by fennecfoxen » Sun, Mar 23, 2014, 12:12 AM UTC

dkhenry wrote: post #21

fennecfoxen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. http://hackingdistributed.com/2013/01/29/mongo-ft/ Also this. http://nyeggen.com/blog/2013/10/18/the-genius-and-folly-of-m...

Because some people don't use it correctly doesn't mean it can't be done. Here is a different random article about ServerDensity using it successfully https://blog.serverdensity.com/tech-behind-time-series-graph... This is nothing wrong with MongoDB.

I'm sure people have been successful. But per link#2 above, "Being able to walk with them doesn’t change the fact that as of right now, MongoDB is clown shoes."

Re: Guide to MongoDB for startups

#66

Post by nlh » Sun, Mar 30, 2014, 3:24 PM UTC

nasalgoat wrote: post #56

nlh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a newbie to the node.js world, there seems to be a lot of talk about the MEAN stack ( http://mean.io ). What do you (or others) suggest as a good replacement for MongoDB in that stack?

You shouldn't try to run all-in-one stacks and instead carefully consider each of your tools as appropriate for your application. Picking something because it's easy is bad.

Thank you. I spent a few days digging into the Node world and came to the same conclusion.

I'm actually a bit surprised how long it took me to figure out that's actually the best practice -- I dug around a bunch of rails-like frameworks and was wondering why they didn't seem to be more widely adopted (Sails, Compound, etc) until it finally made sense that "The Node Way" is to add bits and pieces (usually on top of Express) to build a stack that's specific to needs.