Re:SQL Databases Are An Overapplied Solution
by dasil003 on Friday July 10, 2009 @02:57AM
(#697232)
I really can't stand the hype around these document DBs anymore. Sure SQL database are overapplied. I realize many people are incompetent with them, and that they often don't give appropriate thoughts to alternatives. The title is fair, but then it veers off very quickly into hyperbole and misrepresentation.
To state that the applicability of relational databases is narrow is egregious. Any one of the list of reasons could be a reason to use a relational database, it doesn't require a significant portion at the author seems to imply. There are other reasons too... like how error prone it is to write raw map-reduce code to generate a query that would be trivial, fast and guaranteed correct in any relational DB. And I'm thoroughly sick of the boogeyman of scalability as well. You can go up to the scale of 99.99% of web applications with relatively little hassle.
The article acts as if data integrity is usually not important, but for the vast majority of applications that are out there in the wild and older than a 6-month startup the data is far more valuable than the code. For a huge subset of all data SQL databases represent it the most accurately with adequate performance.
I don't care if the pendulum has swung too far towards SQL--this type of article is intellectually dishonest and won't help anybody make better decisions, it's just more hype.
To state that the applicability of relational databases is narrow is egregious. Any one of the list of reasons could be a reason to use a relational database, it doesn't require a significant portion at the author seems to imply. There are other reasons too... like how error prone it is to write raw map-reduce code to generate a query that would be trivial, fast and guaranteed correct in any relational DB. And I'm thoroughly sick of the boogeyman of scalability as well. You can go up to the scale of 99.99% of web applications with relatively little hassle.
The article acts as if data integrity is usually not important, but for the vast majority of applications that are out there in the wild and older than a 6-month startup the data is far more valuable than the code. For a huge subset of all data SQL databases represent it the most accurately with adequate performance.
I don't care if the pendulum has swung too far towards SQL--this type of article is intellectually dishonest and won't help anybody make better decisions, it's just more hype.