I haven't used MongoDB in production (the comments regarding reliability have been around for awhile), but playing around with it, I do like the json format and

I haven't used MongoDB in production (the comments regarding reliability have been around for awhile), but playing around with it, I do like the json format and query structure. The issue I have with SQL (MS sql in the case of work) is the amount of cleverness involved in some queries I have seen. Among the old timers, it seems almost a badge of honer to develop the longest, most clever SQL query that does everything in one step. Inevitably, there are problems, and people have trouble figuring out why because they can't debug parts of the statement in isolation. In this case, it's as if they have written an entire program in one line and can't test parts in isolation. No doubt this is abuse of the language... and admittedly my SQL skills are not world class, but I keep scratching my head and wondering why they do this to themselves. If a query is so complex you can't tell what it is doing, and it misbehaves, perhaps you would have been better off with some smaller queries you join in the program... nothing against joins... one or two or three of them... but really.... I keep asking myself if I'm missing something, but I sort of doubt it.