5 ms·

If you work for Mongo and are reading this. Please just fix it. I don't need to win and I don't care about being "right". I just don't want to be called to the

by inglor 6y ago

If you work for Mongo and are reading this. Please just fix it. I don't need to win and I don't care about being "right". I just don't want to be called to the office on a weekend anymore for this sort of BS. Production incidents with MongoDB last year: 15 Production instances with redis, elasticsearch and mysql combined last year: 2 (and with much less severity) Edit: just to add: I didn't pick Mongo, I was just the engineer called to clean that mess. I created enough of my own messes to not resent the person who made that shot for it. We are constantly on the verge of rewriting the MongoDB stuff since a database that small (~250GB) should really not have these many issues (In previous workplaces I ran ~10TB PostgreSQL deployments with much more complicated schemas and queries with far fewer issues). It's also expensive and support at Mongo Atlas hasn't been great (we should probably self host but I am not used to small databases being so problematic)

brianwawok 6y ago
This is why most of us don’t use mongo in production. It’s just not worth it. Postgres is a tank and supports Json when you really need it.
- hetspookjee 6y ago
  The Guardian posted quite a nice blog in 2018 about the switch to Postgres from MongoDB. Especially interesting because they intended to use Postgres as replacement document storage: Here's the link https://www.theguardian.com/info/2018/nov/30/bye-bye-mongo-hello-postgres https://www.theguardian.com/info/2018/nov/30/bye-bye-mongo-h...
  - guanzo 6y ago
    > Automatically generating database indexes on application startup is probably a bad idea. aw crap. oh well it probably doesn't matter for my small-ish application.
- Quekid5 6y ago
  I was actually amazed that a big CMS/E-commerce vendor proudly proclaimed in a sales meeting that they were on MongoDB. I suppose salespeople probably aren't into the nitty-gritty, but their tech people should have warned them about this. Maybe they were just trying to pull our collective leg, but I suppose that why I was at that meeting. It was obviously an instant 'No'.
  - leviathant 6y ago
    There aren't a lot of CMS/Ecommerce vendors that sit on MongoDB, so maybe we were in a meeting together! Even if we weren't - as a sales engineer on a large CMS/ECommerce platform with merchants running $150M+ in annual revenue, with an average client retention of seven years, and two decades of agency experience behind the decisions around building that platform, if you instantly said no just because of MongoDB, maybe you don't know as much about MongoDB as you think you do. I came from a SQL background myself, and had reservations based on all the things I'd read about MongoDB as we decided to build a platform after doing things bespoke for two decades, but time has proven our architecture choices out. It's easy to be proud of something that works well.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
arp242 6y ago
I didn't pick Mongo, I was just the engineer called to clean that mess. My only experience with MongoDB is being "the engineer called to clean the mess". I'm sure you can effectively use MongoDB in production if you're knowledgable and careful, but most people aren't and they shouldn't have to know the detailed inner working to not create a mess.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  My only experience with MongoDB is being "the engineer called to clean the mess". It’s always the same 1. Newbie webdev (aren’t they all) uses MongoDB because it’s easy to use according to blogs and twitter 2. Somehow it makes it into production 3. A dozen experienced engineers spend years trying to keep it running
  - sophiebits 6y ago
    No, not all web devs are “newbies”.
    - xpe 6y ago
      Please remember to search for a charitable interpretation of what someone writes, per the HN guidelines [1]: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html In this case, the parent commenter probably meant that "newbie web developers" are likely to choose MongoDB. Of course, web developers have a range of experience, some new, some seasoned. Regarding your comment, I am reminded of a pattern in online behavior over time: people seem to take offense more easily. Please take a look at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-life/201410/taking-offense https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-life/201410/t... to understand what I mean.
      - xpe 6y ago
        Caveat: this is a meta-comment about voting, not a complaint about how people upvoted or downvoted the parent comment. (My motivations are explained at the very bottom). Based on seeing how comments like this may get interpreted, as well as broader thinking about online communication, I think HN should consider a more nuanced system of comment feedback mechanisms. I don't have a particular plan finalized, but I would like to see HN provide feedback on different aspects of the comment. Below are some important aspects: To what degree does the reader / voter... * 1. agree/disagee with the comment? 2. find the comment relevant / irrelevant to the topic as a whole? 3. find the comment is situated in the correct / incorrect location in the thread? (e.g. responding to the parent comment or not) 4. find the comment interesting / uninteresting? 5. think the comment adds to a diversity of perspectives? 6. find the comment clear / unclear? 7. think the comment aligns / (does not align) with the HN Guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html 8. find the comment welcoming / offensive? * When I write '/' above, I intend it to be a continuum; e.g. hot/cold means "in the continuum between hot and cold). Additionally, being able to give feedback in a more granular fashion could be of use. For example, in my comment above, I would not be surprised if a significant number of people were bothered/offended by my commentary that people seem to be taking offense more easily. Some would call this ironic -- I wouldn't -- I think it gives more data to prove the point. Motivations: my goal here is not to gain or lose karma -- I care very little about karma here, precisely because it is so muddled and varied from person to person -- as long as I have enough to participate fully. My goal is to learn and play a small part in fostering awareness and community, while hopefully to motivating others to reflect on their impact on the community here.

by inglor 6y ago

brianwawok 6y ago

This is why most of us don’t use mongo in production. It’s just not worth it. Postgres is a tank and supports Json when you really need it.

hetspookjee 6y ago
The Guardian posted quite a nice blog in 2018 about the switch to Postgres from MongoDB. Especially interesting because they intended to use Postgres as replacement document storage: Here's the link https://www.theguardian.com/info/2018/nov/30/bye-bye-mongo-hello-postgres https://www.theguardian.com/info/2018/nov/30/bye-bye-mongo-h...
- guanzo 6y ago
  > Automatically generating database indexes on application startup is probably a bad idea. aw crap. oh well it probably doesn't matter for my small-ish application.
Quekid5 6y ago
I was actually amazed that a big CMS/E-commerce vendor proudly proclaimed in a sales meeting that they were on MongoDB. I suppose salespeople probably aren't into the nitty-gritty, but their tech people should have warned them about this. Maybe they were just trying to pull our collective leg, but I suppose that why I was at that meeting. It was obviously an instant 'No'.
- leviathant 6y ago
  There aren't a lot of CMS/Ecommerce vendors that sit on MongoDB, so maybe we were in a meeting together! Even if we weren't - as a sales engineer on a large CMS/ECommerce platform with merchants running $150M+ in annual revenue, with an average client retention of seven years, and two decades of agency experience behind the decisions around building that platform, if you instantly said no just because of MongoDB, maybe you don't know as much about MongoDB as you think you do. I came from a SQL background myself, and had reservations based on all the things I'd read about MongoDB as we decided to build a platform after doing things bespoke for two decades, but time has proven our architecture choices out. It's easy to be proud of something that works well.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

arp242 6y ago

I didn't pick Mongo, I was just the engineer called to clean that mess. My only experience with MongoDB is being "the engineer called to clean the mess". I'm sure you can effectively use MongoDB in production if you're knowledgable and careful, but most people aren't and they shouldn't have to know the detailed inner working to not create a mess.

goatinaboat 6y ago
My only experience with MongoDB is being "the engineer called to clean the mess". It’s always the same 1. Newbie webdev (aren’t they all) uses MongoDB because it’s easy to use according to blogs and twitter 2. Somehow it makes it into production 3. A dozen experienced engineers spend years trying to keep it running
- sophiebits 6y ago
  No, not all web devs are “newbies”.
  - xpe 6y ago
    Please remember to search for a charitable interpretation of what someone writes, per the HN guidelines [1]: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html In this case, the parent commenter probably meant that "newbie web developers" are likely to choose MongoDB. Of course, web developers have a range of experience, some new, some seasoned. Regarding your comment, I am reminded of a pattern in online behavior over time: people seem to take offense more easily. Please take a look at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-life/201410/taking-offense https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-life/201410/t... to understand what I mean.
    - xpe 6y ago
      Caveat: this is a meta-comment about voting, not a complaint about how people upvoted or downvoted the parent comment. (My motivations are explained at the very bottom). Based on seeing how comments like this may get interpreted, as well as broader thinking about online communication, I think HN should consider a more nuanced system of comment feedback mechanisms. I don't have a particular plan finalized, but I would like to see HN provide feedback on different aspects of the comment. Below are some important aspects: To what degree does the reader / voter... * 1. agree/disagee with the comment? 2. find the comment relevant / irrelevant to the topic as a whole? 3. find the comment is situated in the correct / incorrect location in the thread? (e.g. responding to the parent comment or not) 4. find the comment interesting / uninteresting? 5. think the comment adds to a diversity of perspectives? 6. find the comment clear / unclear? 7. think the comment aligns / (does not align) with the HN Guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html 8. find the comment welcoming / offensive? * When I write '/' above, I intend it to be a continuum; e.g. hot/cold means "in the continuum between hot and cold). Additionally, being able to give feedback in a more granular fashion could be of use. For example, in my comment above, I would not be surprised if a significant number of people were bothered/offended by my commentary that people seem to be taking offense more easily. Some would call this ironic -- I wouldn't -- I think it gives more data to prove the point. Motivations: my goal here is not to gain or lose karma -- I care very little about karma here, precisely because it is so muddled and varied from person to person -- as long as I have enough to participate fully. My goal is to learn and play a small part in fostering awareness and community, while hopefully to motivating others to reflect on their impact on the community here.