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PostgreSQL has native json support now. What else is missing? Just a protocol implementation? I'd love to see MongoDB give up and become a PostgreSQL consult

by seiji 13y ago

PostgreSQL has native json support now. What else is missing? Just a protocol implementation? I'd love to see MongoDB give up and become a PostgreSQL consultancy. Everybody I talk to in the field has the exact same Mongo story: "We love JSON! We use JSON everywhere! We just wanted a DB with native JSON support. We didn't look at the implementation details. We only looked at their marketing. Now we wake up at 3am to fix it every night and lose data every day. Somebody help us. We love JSON."

busterarm 13y ago
I really would love it if somebody could go back in HN-Time and track the data on Mongo posts & comments. I've always been slightly skeptical about it, but it always seemed to me that there was a long love affair with it overall. Then people started voicing their frustrations and the community was divided and now it looks acrimonious for everyone.
- this_user 13y ago
  Isn't that true for most of those 'flavour of the month' technologies? First a shiny new piece of technology shows up that promises to solve all the issues you have with a mature and widely adopted solution. People get exited and at some point the media picks up on it und starts the hype cycle. More and more decision makers hear about the technology (probably aided by marketing) and decide to adopt it. Implementation takes place and the new technology is deployed into the live environment. Some time goes by and the first issues appear, workarounds and tweaks are devised to mitigate those. After even more time the technology's inherent flaws become apparent. At this point either someone else develops a new iteration of that technology with the promise of solving those issues or the technology is abandoned altogether as it is unable to deliver sufficient value and cannot be fixed.
  - busterarm 13y ago
    Totes. I just wanna see pretty graphics of the trend. These things interest me.
  - yen223 13y ago
    coughbitcoincough
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle
- egeozcan 13y ago
  Is there an algorithm which measures negativity in a given text? Considering the level of grammatical errors and sarcasm involved, one would need a really complicated system, I'd bet. A google search brought me to Sentiment Analysis page on Wikipedia[0], which, after the initial skimming, doesn't seem to link to any implementations. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentiment_analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentiment_analysis
  - TheZenPsycho 13y ago
    I know of one implementation: http://nltk.org http://nltk.org
egeozcan 13y ago
> What else is missing? Just a protocol implementation? Yes. Actually that's why I said that I'm nearly sure. As a side note: We may also need some rumors on being "web scale" (Actually I don't even know much about the events/comments/whatever which lead to that famous video but I still find it funny)
jcampbell1 13y ago
It is probably not as simple as "supports json now". Imagine if HN comments were stored as a JSON document: Client A: Read JSON. Client B: Read JSON. Client A: Append new comment to json document. Client B: Append new comment to json document. Client A: Save JSON Client B: Save JSON A's comment will get deleted. My understanding is that Mongo DB does have a way to append a record within a document, but Postgres does not. I am in no way advocating for MongoDB (I dislike it). I am just saying that I understand that MongoDB has much more sophisticated updates capability than Postgres.
- viraptor 13y ago
  In that case you can (should) just "SELECT ... FOR UPDATE" in your transaction. This should prevent the issue. Client B will wait with the read until client A commits.
  - AlisdairO 13y ago
    Or you can use serialisable transaction isolation and retry on conflict.
    - jeltz 13y ago
      For the simple cases you do not even need that.
      - AlisdairO 13y ago
        Indeed. Depends on whether you need to do a read-update cycle or you can just do it in a single SQL command.
  - jeltz 13y ago
    I am pretty sure that just running UPDATE is enough. If an UPDATE happens to get stuck waiting for a lock it is re-evaluated. EDIT: Found where it is explained in the documentation. I do not see why this should not also apply to JSON. http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/transaction-iso.html#XACT-READ-COMMITTED http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/transaction-iso.ht...

by seiji 13y ago

busterarm 13y ago

I really would love it if somebody could go back in HN-Time and track the data on Mongo posts & comments. I've always been slightly skeptical about it, but it always seemed to me that there was a long love affair with it overall. Then people started voicing their frustrations and the community was divided and now it looks acrimonious for everyone.

this_user 13y ago
Isn't that true for most of those 'flavour of the month' technologies? First a shiny new piece of technology shows up that promises to solve all the issues you have with a mature and widely adopted solution. People get exited and at some point the media picks up on it und starts the hype cycle. More and more decision makers hear about the technology (probably aided by marketing) and decide to adopt it. Implementation takes place and the new technology is deployed into the live environment. Some time goes by and the first issues appear, workarounds and tweaks are devised to mitigate those. After even more time the technology's inherent flaws become apparent. At this point either someone else develops a new iteration of that technology with the promise of solving those issues or the technology is abandoned altogether as it is unable to deliver sufficient value and cannot be fixed.
- busterarm 13y ago
  Totes. I just wanna see pretty graphics of the trend. These things interest me.
- yen223 13y ago
  coughbitcoincough
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle
egeozcan 13y ago
Is there an algorithm which measures negativity in a given text? Considering the level of grammatical errors and sarcasm involved, one would need a really complicated system, I'd bet. A google search brought me to Sentiment Analysis page on Wikipedia[0], which, after the initial skimming, doesn't seem to link to any implementations. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentiment_analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentiment_analysis
- TheZenPsycho 13y ago
  I know of one implementation: http://nltk.org http://nltk.org

egeozcan 13y ago

> What else is missing? Just a protocol implementation? Yes. Actually that's why I said that I'm nearly sure. As a side note: We may also need some rumors on being "web scale" (Actually I don't even know much about the events/comments/whatever which lead to that famous video but I still find it funny)

jcampbell1 13y ago

It is probably not as simple as "supports json now". Imagine if HN comments were stored as a JSON document: Client A: Read JSON. Client B: Read JSON. Client A: Append new comment to json document. Client B: Append new comment to json document. Client A: Save JSON Client B: Save JSON A's comment will get deleted. My understanding is that Mongo DB does have a way to append a record within a document, but Postgres does not. I am in no way advocating for MongoDB (I dislike it). I am just saying that I understand that MongoDB has much more sophisticated updates capability than Postgres.

viraptor 13y ago
In that case you can (should) just "SELECT ... FOR UPDATE" in your transaction. This should prevent the issue. Client B will wait with the read until client A commits.
- AlisdairO 13y ago
  Or you can use serialisable transaction isolation and retry on conflict.
  - jeltz 13y ago
    For the simple cases you do not even need that.
    - AlisdairO 13y ago
      Indeed. Depends on whether you need to do a read-update cycle or you can just do it in a single SQL command.
- jeltz 13y ago
  I am pretty sure that just running UPDATE is enough. If an UPDATE happens to get stuck waiting for a lock it is re-evaluated. EDIT: Found where it is explained in the documentation. I do not see why this should not also apply to JSON. http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/transaction-iso.html#XACT-READ-COMMITTED http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/transaction-iso.ht...