3 ms·

To be fair to the noSQL guys, the technologies that drive the alternatives are very, very young. People are just starting to play with it. There's no reason t

To be fair to the noSQL guys, the technologies that drive the alternatives are very, very young. People are just starting to play with it. There's no reason to think that techniques for performing more traditional sql-style queries on distributed data won't quickly surpass it. And as far as a lookup occuring in log(n) time, imagine a broadcast "hey everyone, row associated with 1030923". Each node checks its bounds (in parallel) and then, if it exists w/i those bounds, does a log(n) search. That's pretty reasonable. In short, my prediction is that these things will grow way outside of key-value pairs and into a complete solution that scales very well (and is _incredibly_ redundant).

dasil003 17y ago
Are you kidding? I wouldn't say it's impossible, but "no reason to think that techniques for performing more traditional sql-style queries on distributed data won't quickly surpass it" is quite a stretch. There's plenty of reason to believe that. Mainly because of the number of databases and the sheer volume of thought put into RDBMS', both theoretical and practical. Sure, when it comes to massive scalability there are dozens of promising new technologies that beat SQL databases, but they all make tradeoffs, there's just no way not too when you're talking about something as powerful as SQL. I imagine there will be some great improvements that come out, but I think we're past the point of any major data store revolutions unless something fundamentally changes like quantum computing becomes a reality and we have to all basically start over.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  I suspect that solid state drives optimized for databases will appear before quantum computing. ioFusion is already targeting media distribution applications. Just as filesystems have been optimized to spinning platters and are adjusting for SSD, databases will have to adjust as well. (I'm not just talking about flash, either. There will be other SSD technologies.)
- alexgartrell 17y ago
  The software that runs on any node is pretty trivial as compared to a SQL database. Very easily written and understood. In three years, I assure you the systems will be significantly better and will start to rival many of the features of RDBMS'. At least the ones most relevant to anyone running something like hacker news or stack overflow.

dasil003 17y ago

Are you kidding? I wouldn't say it's impossible, but "no reason to think that techniques for performing more traditional sql-style queries on distributed data won't quickly surpass it" is quite a stretch. There's plenty of reason to believe that. Mainly because of the number of databases and the sheer volume of thought put into RDBMS', both theoretical and practical. Sure, when it comes to massive scalability there are dozens of promising new technologies that beat SQL databases, but they all make tradeoffs, there's just no way not too when you're talking about something as powerful as SQL. I imagine there will be some great improvements that come out, but I think we're past the point of any major data store revolutions unless something fundamentally changes like quantum computing becomes a reality and we have to all basically start over.

stcredzero 17y ago
I suspect that solid state drives optimized for databases will appear before quantum computing. ioFusion is already targeting media distribution applications. Just as filesystems have been optimized to spinning platters and are adjusting for SSD, databases will have to adjust as well. (I'm not just talking about flash, either. There will be other SSD technologies.)
alexgartrell 17y ago
The software that runs on any node is pretty trivial as compared to a SQL database. Very easily written and understood. In three years, I assure you the systems will be significantly better and will start to rival many of the features of RDBMS'. At least the ones most relevant to anyone running something like hacker news or stack overflow.