MongoDB

The pure, unadulterated, presumptuous impudence of NoSQL. Engines like MongoDB recklessly discard concepts like ACID in some futile quest to achieve “web scale”, and end up accomplishing neither. RDBMS systems have literally decades of history to draw upon, and have long since conquered the pitfalls NoSQL platforms are just now encountering. There may be something to a couple of them, but by and large, they’re nothing we really need. At least, that’s something I might have said a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve been almost exclusively a Postgres DBA for a seemingly interminable length of time. While this is good for specializing, nobody wants to be a One-Trick Pony. And aside from the occasional bit of Python to write more advanced tools when Bash isn’t up to the job, it’s All Postgres All The Time. While few things would make me happier, it pays to branch out occasionally. When NoSQL databases hit the scene a few years ago, I pretty much ignored them wholesale.