4 ms·

Relational database pioneer weighs in on NoSQL

65 points by ryandvm 16y ago

wccrawford 16y ago
"The NoSQL guys are people who know nothing about databases and their first reaction is to lash out, so I'm not surprised, [by the reaction]," he said. I guess he's not above a little mudslinging. This article wasn't about NoSQL at all. It was about his new competitor to the existing databases, SQL and NoSQL alike.
- ergo98 16y ago
  He knows how to get press, and playing up that confrontation yields links and references. Just as many NoSQL pieces start off with some often ridiculous attacks on YeSQL. I'm still trying to understand how SciDB differs from VoltDB. We're currently evaluating VoltDB for some analysis processes.
  - jhugg 16y ago
    VoltDB is focused on mutating an in-memory dataset at ultra-high speed with full transactions and ACID. SciDB is focused on analyzing petabytes of scientific data in array form, where people care about things like data provenance and accumulated error bounds. Almost polar opposites in use, but similar in philosophy. Both believe specialized systems are the way to handle specialized workloads.
    - ergo98 16y ago
      Very interesting, thank you. This is the most concise description of this product that I have yet seen.
- dkarl 16y ago
  That comment was about the NoSQL community's hostile reaction to his criticisms of MapReduce, and it does indeed show that they're not interested in knowing about databases, because they read his criticism in the context of an imaginary (or only-real-because-people-think-it's-real) SQL vs. NoSQL struggle. Instead of seeing it as an analysis of the shortcomings of MapReduce (and being curious about the perspective or needs that might make those shortcomings important,) their simplistic reaction was that he was fighting for the wrong side and needed to be discredited. One of the comments on the blog exemplifies the reaction perfectly: Technically, I agree with much of this article ... <snip> ... But none of that matters. It’s all about hearts and minds, and if the DB industry adopts the attitude in this article, it’s back to what I said at HPTS back in 2001: We Lose. Screw content, screw technical judgment, it's about attitude and "winning" the struggle "against" existing database technologies.
ubercore 16y ago
I'm not too deep in the NoSQL world, but isn't this article conflating MapReduce with NoSQL? NoSQL is a broad AJAX-y term, but generally I thought it was referring to schema-less/document databases, not MapReduce. You don't have to use MapReduce (necessarily) to query a NoSQL datastore, and you could use MapReduce on a relational database, right?
- arethuza 16y ago
  Indeed you can - I've just written a very simple MapReduce framework that sites on top of the SQL database inside Safari on the iPhone. At the moment the JSON documents it uses are stored in a SQL table, but you could convert a more "traditional" table structure into JSON dynamically.
- adamtj 16y ago
  I would agree that MapReduce and NoSQL are different things, but so are NoSQL and AJAX. I've always thought of NoSQL as a class of durable, distributed lookup tables, and the style of programming which uses such tools as a primary data store. It's basically bdb scaled up with nice libraries built on top. Document databases seem to me to be api sugar.
  - ubercore 16y ago
    Sorry, didn't mean to imply that NoSQL and AJAX had any relation. I was just using it as an example of an overly broad term that came to mean more than it possibly should have (ie, any advanced Javascript was/is called AJAX, whether it uses XHR and xml or not). This article seems to take NoSQL down that path, by putting MapReduce under its umbrella.
    - adamtj 16y ago
      I see, and I agree, both terms are overly broad.
some1else 16y ago
Duplicate entry: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1685902 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1685902
mcantor 16y ago
I don't understand the appeal of these articles. There was another one a while ago that had a quote like, "I asked someone with 10 years of PHP experience what they thought of the Rails project they had been working on for the last few months, and they said that it was completely worthless!" Why would someone who has worked deeply with a diametrically oppositional technology be qualified to talk about NoSQL?
- timthorn 16y ago
  He's qualified because he has deep domain expertise in data storage. It's interesting and valuable to hear opinionated points of view from people who have clearly demonstrated skill and ability in a field, even (especially) if they disagree with the consensus view.
- adamtj 16y ago
  They aren't diametrically opposed. They are different aspects of the same thing. At the end of the day, it's all just tables. NoSQL gives you one table and all sorts of scalability and robustness and tools for working with that table. RDBMSs give you many tables, and all sorts of robustness and scalability and tools for working with those many tables, and for putting them together in interesting ways to get answers to your questions. NoSQL allows for much greater scalability for your one table because it doesn't have to assume you are doing anything too complicated with it. Usually, you just want a few records at a time. That can be made fast, even if there are billions or trillions of other records, and they do make it fast. RDBMSs trade that sort of scalability for the ability to easily ask very very complicated questions and get answers reasonably quickly. And here's this guy in the article talking about RDBMSs with column oriented tables instead of row oriented tables. And then he bashed MapReduce, which is about transforming data, and has nothing to do with tables or storing and retrieving data. So NoSQL and RDBMSs are not diametrically opposed. Talking about them is like comparing apples and oranges, which are both fruit, but not equivalent. Throwing MapReduce in there is like comparing apples and oranges and blenders.
- fauigerzigerk 16y ago
  Stonebreaker isn't a relational zealot. He's been inventing new stuff outside the original relational model for ages. Remember object relational databases? The relational purists hate this guy.
scotth 16y ago
This article is very poorly written. It's as if no one double checked it. I've come across three mistakes and I'm not even finished yet.
- drv 16y ago
  Agreed; in particular, the quotes read like poorly-transcribed scribbles that don't even form sentences.
  - pbh 16y ago
    I for one am relieved that SciDB will be supporting bulk load rather than the "single road insert" that we have been saddled with all this time in other relational database products.
jbellis 16y ago
http://twitter.com/moonpolysoft/status/24405372639 http://twitter.com/moonpolysoft/status/24405372639
T_S_ 16y ago
Wow. That could use some editing.
- some1else 16y ago
  Seriously! I could adjust for some spelling errors, but sometimes the entire sentence lost it's meaning.
bborud 16y ago
Thorvalds v. Tanenbaum redux.

65 points by ryandvm 16y ago

"The NoSQL guys are people who know nothing about databases and their first reaction is to lash out, so I'm not surprised, [by the reaction]," he said. I guess he's not above a little mudslinging. This article wasn't about NoSQL at all. It was about his new competitor to the existing databases, SQL and NoSQL alike.

ergo98 16y ago
He knows how to get press, and playing up that confrontation yields links and references. Just as many NoSQL pieces start off with some often ridiculous attacks on YeSQL. I'm still trying to understand how SciDB differs from VoltDB. We're currently evaluating VoltDB for some analysis processes.
- jhugg 16y ago
  VoltDB is focused on mutating an in-memory dataset at ultra-high speed with full transactions and ACID. SciDB is focused on analyzing petabytes of scientific data in array form, where people care about things like data provenance and accumulated error bounds. Almost polar opposites in use, but similar in philosophy. Both believe specialized systems are the way to handle specialized workloads.
  - ergo98 16y ago
    Very interesting, thank you. This is the most concise description of this product that I have yet seen.
dkarl 16y ago
That comment was about the NoSQL community's hostile reaction to his criticisms of MapReduce, and it does indeed show that they're not interested in knowing about databases, because they read his criticism in the context of an imaginary (or only-real-because-people-think-it's-real) SQL vs. NoSQL struggle. Instead of seeing it as an analysis of the shortcomings of MapReduce (and being curious about the perspective or needs that might make those shortcomings important,) their simplistic reaction was that he was fighting for the wrong side and needed to be discredited. One of the comments on the blog exemplifies the reaction perfectly: Technically, I agree with much of this article ... <snip> ... But none of that matters. It’s all about hearts and minds, and if the DB industry adopts the attitude in this article, it’s back to what I said at HPTS back in 2001: We Lose. Screw content, screw technical judgment, it's about attitude and "winning" the struggle "against" existing database technologies.

ubercore 16y ago

I'm not too deep in the NoSQL world, but isn't this article conflating MapReduce with NoSQL? NoSQL is a broad AJAX-y term, but generally I thought it was referring to schema-less/document databases, not MapReduce. You don't have to use MapReduce (necessarily) to query a NoSQL datastore, and you could use MapReduce on a relational database, right?

arethuza 16y ago
Indeed you can - I've just written a very simple MapReduce framework that sites on top of the SQL database inside Safari on the iPhone. At the moment the JSON documents it uses are stored in a SQL table, but you could convert a more "traditional" table structure into JSON dynamically.
adamtj 16y ago
I would agree that MapReduce and NoSQL are different things, but so are NoSQL and AJAX. I've always thought of NoSQL as a class of durable, distributed lookup tables, and the style of programming which uses such tools as a primary data store. It's basically bdb scaled up with nice libraries built on top. Document databases seem to me to be api sugar.
- ubercore 16y ago
  Sorry, didn't mean to imply that NoSQL and AJAX had any relation. I was just using it as an example of an overly broad term that came to mean more than it possibly should have (ie, any advanced Javascript was/is called AJAX, whether it uses XHR and xml or not). This article seems to take NoSQL down that path, by putting MapReduce under its umbrella.
  - adamtj 16y ago
    I see, and I agree, both terms are overly broad.

some1else 16y ago

Duplicate entry: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1685902 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1685902

mcantor 16y ago

I don't understand the appeal of these articles. There was another one a while ago that had a quote like, "I asked someone with 10 years of PHP experience what they thought of the Rails project they had been working on for the last few months, and they said that it was completely worthless!" Why would someone who has worked deeply with a diametrically oppositional technology be qualified to talk about NoSQL?

timthorn 16y ago
He's qualified because he has deep domain expertise in data storage. It's interesting and valuable to hear opinionated points of view from people who have clearly demonstrated skill and ability in a field, even (especially) if they disagree with the consensus view.
adamtj 16y ago
They aren't diametrically opposed. They are different aspects of the same thing. At the end of the day, it's all just tables. NoSQL gives you one table and all sorts of scalability and robustness and tools for working with that table. RDBMSs give you many tables, and all sorts of robustness and scalability and tools for working with those many tables, and for putting them together in interesting ways to get answers to your questions. NoSQL allows for much greater scalability for your one table because it doesn't have to assume you are doing anything too complicated with it. Usually, you just want a few records at a time. That can be made fast, even if there are billions or trillions of other records, and they do make it fast. RDBMSs trade that sort of scalability for the ability to easily ask very very complicated questions and get answers reasonably quickly. And here's this guy in the article talking about RDBMSs with column oriented tables instead of row oriented tables. And then he bashed MapReduce, which is about transforming data, and has nothing to do with tables or storing and retrieving data. So NoSQL and RDBMSs are not diametrically opposed. Talking about them is like comparing apples and oranges, which are both fruit, but not equivalent. Throwing MapReduce in there is like comparing apples and oranges and blenders.
fauigerzigerk 16y ago
Stonebreaker isn't a relational zealot. He's been inventing new stuff outside the original relational model for ages. Remember object relational databases? The relational purists hate this guy.

scotth 16y ago

This article is very poorly written. It's as if no one double checked it. I've come across three mistakes and I'm not even finished yet.

drv 16y ago
Agreed; in particular, the quotes read like poorly-transcribed scribbles that don't even form sentences.
- pbh 16y ago
  I for one am relieved that SciDB will be supporting bulk load rather than the "single road insert" that we have been saddled with all this time in other relational database products.

jbellis 16y ago

http://twitter.com/moonpolysoft/status/24405372639 http://twitter.com/moonpolysoft/status/24405372639

T_S_ 16y ago

Wow. That could use some editing.

some1else 16y ago
Seriously! I could adjust for some spelling errors, but sometimes the entire sentence lost it's meaning.

bborud 16y ago

Thorvalds v. Tanenbaum redux.