NoSQL Document Storage Benefits and Drawbacks 96
Nerval's Lobster writes "NoSQL databases sometimes feature a concept called document storage, a way of storing data that differs in radical ways from the means available to traditional relational SQL databases. But what does 'document storage' actually mean, and what are its implications for developers and other IT pros? This SlashBI article focuses on MongoDB; the techniques utilized here are similar in other document-based databases."
The article is barely a description of MongoDB... (Score:5, Informative)
The article is barely a description of MongoDB records. It does not really detail any real drawbacks or benefits beyond "look ma, random structure in my record!"
Re:Same as the old boss (Score:2, Informative)
The article lied. It mentioned benefits and drawbacks in the title, but all it described was a collection of collections of key-value pairs. Is that really what this whole NoSQL thing is about?
Re:Another NoSQL article on /. (Score:5, Informative)
Sadly, his post will be missed because everyone's too busy talking about how everything can be done just as easily on a $500,000 server farm running Oracle's latest and greatest turd.
Actually, I was going to talk about how PostgreSQL 9.2 (expected in Q3 of this year) will include JSON support [postgresql.org]. The database also has non-relational key value [postgresql.org] storage, and that feature is even available in Heroku deployments [heroku.com] now.
PostgreSQL also lets you relax ACID for performance when that makes sense, at the transaction level, using synchronous_commit parameter [postgresql.org] and unlogged tables [depesz.com].
There are two things PostgreSQL doesn't do as well as MongoDB. It won't do simple key/value lookups quite as fast; I normally eliminate that problem by putting a memcached server in at some level. And you can't split writes among multiple nodes easily yet.
Re:Same as the old boss (Score:4, Informative)
JSON is crap for storing arbitrary structured data and collections for web applications.
In javascript you can easily construct an object that is both an "Array" and has named attributes (an associative array). However, you can't recreate that object with valid JSON.
JSON also introduces a fantastic new method of inserting arbitrarily executing code into a web application, demanding yet another set of defenses against insertion attacks to be developed.
It is a problem masquerading as a solution to a problem it can't actually solve.
Re:Wrong, wrong, and wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
Sure it won't create an instance of Array, but if you're using an Array to also be an associative array then really I think JSON is the least of your worries.