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Dr. Richard Hipp calls them "Postmodern Databases"
- adelevie 16y agoBy this logic, unit testing is not postmodern :)
- petercooper 16y agoHe thinks that NoSQL is not a very good name for the new databases we’re seeing these days, so he proposed a new name: postmodern databases. Why postmodern? We've had similar points raised before, yet the term "NoSQL" continues to gain in popularity. There were similar concerns around "AJAX" and "Web 2.0" - both survived and are only just starting to be replaced. Community-coined terms like NoSQL, AJAX, and Web 2.0 start as literal, descriptive terms. But after a while they become "brands" that represent a myriad of concepts and ideas that do not necessarily fit into their original definition. This is because they're not controlled or maintained by a single entity (like, say, "brands" like Redis, Twitter, Ruby or Django are). (BTW, PomoDB would be a cool name for a new "NoSQL" database system ;-))
- thisduck 16y agoPomoDB looks awfully a lot like PornoDB, depending on the font you're using. Or depending on your mindset.
- petercooper 16y agoAh, so that explains why the "pomodoro" technique took off in some developer circles recently.. :-)
- jrockway 16y agoPornoDB is the database that captures snapshots of what happens on the Couch.
- pierrefar 16y agoAnd let's not talk about "replication" in PornoDB.
- wglb 16y agoOr something about tomatoes.
- wglb 16y agoOr something about tomatoes.
- amalcon 16y agoI still haven't figured out what Web 2.0 is supposed to be. The closest I've been able to figure is that it's either a pure buzzword, or synonymous with DHTML. If NoSQL goes the way of AJAX, that's fine. It's not a very good term, but at least it means something useful. If it goes the way of Web 2.0, no thanks -- I'd much prefer a different term, any different term, so long as it's actually descriptive.
- jerf 16y agoWeb 2.0 can't be synonymous with DHTML, the buzzwords are temporally separated by about ten years. DHMTL was what Netscape called its <layer> tag, before it got blown out of the water by IE 4's radically superior .innerHTML. (And I use "radically" carefully; it rewrote the web as we thought we knew it.)
- SkyMarshal 16y agoWeb 2.0 = Ajax + Social Media, basically. Websites that don't have to refresh the entire page to conduct user interaction, plus social news/networking/blogging/etc.
- petercooper 16y agoDon't forget gradients and rounded corners..
- dkarl 16y agoTwo more meanings of Web 2.0 to add to the mix: 1. A functional app with a modern, attractive design, as opposed to a legacy app that feels clunky and old. This is how it's used by non-technical people at my job. A web site can be made Web 2.0 by updating its aesthetics. Fixing bugs also makes it feel more Web 2.0. 2. A site where users can add "content" that can be seen by other users. This is how it's used by non-technical folks on campus, according to a friend of mine. Sounds reasonable, but it turns out they apply the definition quite literally, so any site with forums or comments is Web 2.0.
- bobbyi 16y agoWeb 2.0 isn't "community-coined". The term was invented by Tim O'Reilly to sell conference registrations and books. It's no more of a "brand name" and no more nebulous now than it was when he coined it. AJAX was coined by Jesse James Garrett. I'm not sure that he would consider himself to be a community.
- petercooper 16y agoYep, that's what I meant. AJAX was "community coined" in the sense that it was coined a member of the tech community, not by a company (as with a trademark or commercial brand name) or a standards body (as with official standards like "ECMAScript"). It's like when "the neighborhood" forms a "neighborhood watch." Not everyone in the neighborhood spontaneously starts it - it's usually one or a few people who come up with the idea and then everyone gels around it. Or like how Java was a technology created by Sun, even though it was really Patrick Naughton - it's a synecdoche of sorts. All that said, while the above stands for AJAX, you probably have a point regarding "Web 2.0" since it was tied to O'Reilly as a company via trademark, though I'd argue that the community essentially "stole" this brand and made it a lot of things that it never originally was.
- chromatic 16y agoVery minor nit: Dale Dougherty suggested "Web 2.0", not Tim.
- Groxx 16y agoI think NoSQL will probably out-last other names. It's got everything a geek wants: * Short (5 letters) * Opinionated (No) * TLA (SQL) (bonus points because it's well known)
- s-phi-nl 16y agoSeems to be an example of semantic diffusion. http://martinfowler.com/bliki/SemanticDiffusion.html http://martinfowler.com/bliki/SemanticDiffusion.html
- jamespitts 16y agoI love the term. It has clarity, and also hints of self-mockery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation
- olefoo 16y agoIf I have to start reading Heidegger again just to understand what my database is doing I will be seriously freaked out. I am fairly sure that Jaques Derrida is an alias for __why_the_lucky_stiff.
- winxordie 16y agoThey disappeared off the face of the earth about 5 years apart, but other than that, I can't tell too much of a difference. :)
- mjw 16y agoThe thing that bugs me about the 'NoSQL' name is that it seems to lump together "relational vs key-value/object store" and "centralised vs distributed" as one and the same distinction. They're not. Databases based on the relational model can be distributed, 'post-modern' as this guy puts it, too. There's some interesting work by logician/comp-sci/AI folks in this area, applying epistemic (and other modal) logics to multi-agent knowledge base scenarios, but I think it got a bit forgotten about because of its association with AI (think: lots of robots going around gathering knowledge which may or may not be consistent with eachother) rather than more mundane things like distributed relational databases. Here's a course I remember taking on the subject, which might interest anyone who thinks 'post-modern' databases or models of knowledge are interesting: http://web.comlab.ox.ac.uk/teaching/courses/multiagent/index.html http://web.comlab.ox.ac.uk/teaching/courses/multiagent/index...
- artsrc 16y agoAre there any good distributed relational implementations? Joins and referential integrity seems to add difficulty to the distribution problem.