3 ms·

> The Object/Relational impedance mismatch stays right there where you leave it. Somewhat umbrella...but I do think that document-based storage does make a dif

by latch 15y ago

> The Object/Relational impedance mismatch stays right there where you leave it. Somewhat umbrella...but I do think that document-based storage does make a difference. It certainly doesn't erase it and, as you say, it varies based on the use-case at hand, but I think most people would consider the development experience to have less friction (and that's certainly been the overwhelming anecdotal evidence I've heard (and can give)).

prodigal_erik 15y ago
I have to wonder whether that's because many devs started using schemaless databases for the first time over the last couple of years, and haven't yet really experienced the nightmare of data which was scribbled on by various forgotten buggy versions of the apps and never rigorously migrated (because they're self-selected to regard that as unimportant). I once worked on a Lotus Notes-based system with documents eventually reaching such nonsensical states that the dev team couldn't even say what app behavior would be appropriate, much less what the latest version of all our code would happen to do.
- JanezStupar 15y ago
  Exactly, I have done most of my work on legacy (think 10-15 years worth of data, millions of documents that were spawned in countless application versions, without any schema tracking whatsoever - everything is implicit in the document itself) Lotus Domino applications. Since there is no explicit database schema in these types of databases, what you didn't do at write, you have to do at read. And usually you want to use the latest view or representation of data, what do you do with data that wasn't there ten versions ago. What do you do about data fields of wrong format? What do you do with data that is "orphaned" and cannot be referenced to other data. Yet it still is data and still is important. Don't get me wrong, I Love NoSQL and I like to use it. I just have enough experience with it to know that it is definitely not a silver bullet. By the way: If someone is looking to hire a guy who is not afraid of tackling this kind of issue, contact me. I have plenty of experience with coercion of non relational data into a form suitable for analysis.

by latch 15y ago

prodigal_erik 15y ago

I have to wonder whether that's because many devs started using schemaless databases for the first time over the last couple of years, and haven't yet really experienced the nightmare of data which was scribbled on by various forgotten buggy versions of the apps and never rigorously migrated (because they're self-selected to regard that as unimportant). I once worked on a Lotus Notes-based system with documents eventually reaching such nonsensical states that the dev team couldn't even say what app behavior would be appropriate, much less what the latest version of all our code would happen to do.

JanezStupar 15y ago
Exactly, I have done most of my work on legacy (think 10-15 years worth of data, millions of documents that were spawned in countless application versions, without any schema tracking whatsoever - everything is implicit in the document itself) Lotus Domino applications. Since there is no explicit database schema in these types of databases, what you didn't do at write, you have to do at read. And usually you want to use the latest view or representation of data, what do you do with data that wasn't there ten versions ago. What do you do about data fields of wrong format? What do you do with data that is "orphaned" and cannot be referenced to other data. Yet it still is data and still is important. Don't get me wrong, I Love NoSQL and I like to use it. I just have enough experience with it to know that it is definitely not a silver bullet. By the way: If someone is looking to hire a guy who is not afraid of tackling this kind of issue, contact me. I have plenty of experience with coercion of non relational data into a form suitable for analysis.