So, what's a good NoSQL database for e.g. node.js use? The only alternative I know of is CouchDB. (Yes, I should give more parameters about the intended use, but I really don't know any alternatives).
The genius and folly of MongoDB
31–40 of 280 posts
Re: The genius and folly of MongoDB
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> None of how MongoDB works is a secret. Maybe not now, but this hasn't always been the case. The fact that they had (have?) a global write lock was completely buried on the doc site for ages. Benchmarks were waved in front of developer's faces to distract them from the "drivers don't actually write data, they just blast it out in every direction and hope it lands somewhere good" BS. I don't use Mongo anymore, and I…
That's all true, but they were giving 90% of their users exactly what they wanted: "We value feature-set and expressiveness much more than scalability at our data size, but we want to feel like we're big data too so say some of that stuff" And that's their brilliance, they listened to what people said they wanted and then gave them what they really wanted.
No, what they thought they wanted. They promised a world without DBAs, but the "DBA" is really, whoever gets called at 3am in the morning with the site goes down. If you don't know who the DBA is, it's you. They promised a world without schemas, but you always have a schema, the only question is whether you know what it is and the tools help you validate it or not. They promised massive scalability, but really just pushed scalability problems out into other layers of the stack. I could go on and on...
Re: The genius and folly of MongoDB
#33There are also people using MongoDB and finding it meets their needs well, and don't feel the need to keep writing about how everything sucks or is wonderful. (I'm one of them.) None of how MongoDB works is a secret. And just like everything else it has sweet spots and problem areas. And like many others, development continues and it gets better. The database does not get the job done - it is a tool to help get the j…
> None of how MongoDB works is a secret. Maybe not now, but this hasn't always been the case. The fact that they had (have?) a global write lock was completely buried on the doc site for ages. Benchmarks were waved in front of developer's faces to distract them from the "drivers don't actually write data, they just blast it out in every direction and hope it lands somewhere good" BS. I don't use Mongo anymore, and I…
Sorry, but the global write lock has been public knowledge since the very early days. Mongo's done nothing to hide that. Also (i worked for 10gen at the time) the "marketing department" that you refer to, was a single person organizing events to give developers what they wanted: knowledge and a community around mongodb.
Re: The genius and folly of MongoDB
#34There are also people using MongoDB and finding it meets their needs well, and don't feel the need to keep writing about how everything sucks or is wonderful. (I'm one of them.) None of how MongoDB works is a secret. And just like everything else it has sweet spots and problem areas. And like many others, development continues and it gets better. The database does not get the job done - it is a tool to help get the j…
It's important to make the inner workings of our tools visible and understandable, so that we can make the right decisions about them.
In this case, this article does nothing but elucidate the truth, quite plainly and clearly, in fact. That's important, in and of itself.
How you use it is up to you, but we must not vilify truth.
Re: The genius and folly of MongoDB
#35There are also people using MongoDB and finding it meets their needs well, and don't feel the need to keep writing about how everything sucks or is wonderful. (I'm one of them.) None of how MongoDB works is a secret. And just like everything else it has sweet spots and problem areas. And like many others, development continues and it gets better. The database does not get the job done - it is a tool to help get the j…
> None of how MongoDB works is a secret. Maybe not now, but this hasn't always been the case. The fact that they had (have?) a global write lock was completely buried on the doc site for ages. Benchmarks were waved in front of developer's faces to distract them from the "drivers don't actually write data, they just blast it out in every direction and hope it lands somewhere good" BS. I don't use Mongo anymore, and I…
I worked for 10gen (now MongoDB) for over 2 years (I left in December).
Never once while I was there did they publish a benchmark: There was a [publicly] stated company policy to not publish or comment on benchmarks.
If you have evidence otherwise (i.e. benchmarks published by the folks working on MongoDB) fine, but I take this as a deliberately inflammatory (and false) statement.
EDIT: The global write lock was removed ~last August; there is now a database level lock. Future releases will likely make that more fine grained. Additionally, the drivers no longer do "unsafe" writes, but check w/ server.. as of the same release.
Re: The genius and folly of MongoDB
#36Really like this article. I try not to dump on MongoDB too much because frankly I have never taken the time to understand its internals. I constrain my criticisms to particular unnecessary failures/inadequacies that I personally have experienced (or any "I'll just use mongodb so I don't have to worry about my data" sentiment). Funny punchline at the end there too.
I like this too. There's very little to criticize, since it basically tells it exactly like it is without too much embellishment, and makes intelligent, honest conclusions.
Re: The genius and folly of MongoDB
#37>But in that case, it also wouldn’t be crazy to pull a Viaweb and store it on the file system
I've done this before when I was doing work for a client using an existing simple web host with no built-in options for databases. It works well, and the nice part is that there's a simple, obvious way to do any query. The bad part is that anything other than a primary key lookup is slow unless you add a lot of complexity.
Re: The genius and folly of MongoDB
#38There are also people using MongoDB and finding it meets their needs well, and don't feel the need to keep writing about how everything sucks or is wonderful. (I'm one of them.) None of how MongoDB works is a secret. And just like everything else it has sweet spots and problem areas. And like many others, development continues and it gets better. The database does not get the job done - it is a tool to help get the j…
Mongos (the routing for MongoDB when clustering) has a bunch of drawbacks that make MongoDB worse. One of which is dropping all connections when a master switches. Have you dealt with those problems yet? MongoDB is generally perfect at small scale is what I have perceived.
The new database level lock in 2.2 is also annoying (and arbitrary) but it is better than the global lock.
Re: The genius and folly of MongoDB
#39So, what's a good NoSQL database for e.g. node.js use? The only alternative I know of is CouchDB. (Yes, I should give more parameters about the intended use, but I really don't know any alternatives).
[deleted]
Re: The genius and folly of MongoDB
#40So, what's a good NoSQL database for e.g. node.js use? The only alternative I know of is CouchDB. (Yes, I should give more parameters about the intended use, but I really don't know any alternatives).
RethinkDB[1], perhaps.