'Ugly' MongoDB defies NoSQL death rumour

Nothing like a good rant to liven up the commentard's day.

I didn't assume B, since there is no need: If A holds, then it doesn't matter where any loss occurs. Thus, there is no need to make sure it doesn't happen in the database backend, meaning you can make do with one that doesn't provide ACID, and thus mysql fits the bill. The out-of-control copyright enforcement is another example of same: Their prorities aren't with caring for user data. Which was the point.

Example? Video gets deleted frivolously (and we know this happens regularly), account holder fights, amazingly wins, gets reinstated. Where's the comments? I think it was flickr where a couple of years worth of discussion went irrevocably *poof* that way, quite recently.

The way you choose to read my wording of that, well, that's up to you. I don't particularly like mysql and (heated, repeated) assertions it can do things it doesn't actually provide I like even less. I did note that plenty of "NoSQL" software doesn't claim ACID (indeed, it tends to being quite up-front about *not* providing such for speed). You are, however, elevating a footnote to the main thrust, which isn't quite how I wrote it. You might see more if you read again, disregarding the footnote.

By the same token, if I didn't say that people who do know what they're doing can take most any tool and make it dance, well, guess you'll have to sue me now. Where I didn't put in fair defence of mysql, I didn't put in the attacks you imply I did either. The point was, rather, and quite explicitly so, that the requirements of most database use(r)s are such that it enables them using databases in well-known ill-advised ways then feel like they're knowledgeable about databases.

Point in case? Weblogs and any other website with scripting language and database backing. Those databases store entire webpage templates, pictures, and all sorts of other things for the purpose of, well, serving all that back. There's no smarts required, it's all "glorified file access". You'd probably be better off running it all through the templater once at each update, then storing the results for serving later, many many times, on a file system. Which is what happens in a roundabout ("heroic") way on most bigger sites, as they snuck a cache, possibly together with a load balancer, in front of the webserving/scripting/database stack.

You see a lot of that with the most popular of them all, mysql, but as elsethread noted, not just with them. It just so happens that if you want a good one, you pick a different one. One that actually provides things like referential integrity. Wilfully turning that around and making it an attack on the software is missing the point, really. If it works for you, well, it works for you. But you probably aren't really requiring things like ACID as much as you think you do.

Likewise, what you take to be an attack on php isn't, not quite. It's an illustration of how starting on the wrong foot and letting it fester for too long might require engineering heroics to keep on trucking later. That piece of software is quite impressive. The fact that it was needed, and quite desperately so, is not at all, or at least not without Chinese connotations. That fact, of it being needed --you don't go there unless you have to; they had to and said so too-- explicitly to address scale problems, is really all the evidence you need to infer that the php code doesn't scale.

All in all a rather long counter that seems to hinge on your reading and your assumptions, even your imaginings. Well, I think I'll be content not being you. Converting people would in a sense be cruel and unusual punishment for it would deprive developers of opportunities to engage in pointless heroics (as, curiously, referred to in the linked content), even if it might save some poor sysadmin or ops guy some sanity points down the line. We all know sysadmins don't get to retain those points anyway. If you care, though, you may want to spend some time with db-class dot org. The basics of the theory and a bit of hands-on can be quite handy at times.