How did SQL get so popular?

Re:How did SQL get so popular? by dagheti on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @06:18PM (#640572)

I think part of the backlash is coming from developers on web-applications that have business models that require scaling to very large loads before they make sense. This puts a premium on keeping things very cheap (no heavy commercial SQLDBMS), and inherently scalable (hierarchical).

Web developers on these types of projects cannot either a: buy a "real" SQLDBMS, or b: charge their customers so their business model makes sense without a huge number of transactions. This means they are willing to suffer it out with solutions that don't provide flexibility or data correctness guarantees of a RDBMS.

This is just a guess, but it's quite likely that it is the rise of hyper-scale-intensive, speed-intensive, revenue-light business models that drives devs towards deciding SQL isn't worth it.

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Re:How did SQL get so popular? by silentbicycle on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @06:21PM (#640577)

Postgresql is free.

I'm not going to claim it's perfect, but it's pretty damn good, and postgres + intelligently used caching (such as memcached) goes a long way.

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Re:How did SQL get so popular? by kragen on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @09:44PM (#640807)

Well, you're right that licensing cost can't be the reason, although ten years ago it could have been. But I think the "inherently scalable" item may have something to it.

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