'One 10gen engineer made this point in analogizing SQL to Cobol, arguing that "SQL is Annoying":'
Why wasn't this the tagline for Mongo to begin with? At least it shows the arrogance, ignorance, and outright stupidity behind the database. This is not an engineer's comment. It cannot possibly be now, decades after SQL has become a de facto standard for some very good reasons (outlined in the article and elsewhere, won't rehash here). It is a marketer's comment, probably spoken by an engineer who isn't qualified to build simple demo apps, let alone anything as complex as a database. Mongo's CTO seems to fit this bill of marketer more than anything else or how would he be able to make the claims he makes with a straight face?
Our industry has a problem with fads and decisions based on feelings. Even if SQL is annoying, it's incredibly stupid to base your tech choices on feelings. It's even dumber to choose a product whose engineers build the product based on feelings. Last I checked, I thought we were an industry of engineers, trying to apply scientific principles and some human ingenuity to build software. Where does 'annoying' fit into that? Or other adjectives I often see thrown around on these boards like 'clean' and 'slick'. I know it's hard to quantify the quality of software and speak about it with any coherence, but this is beyond incoherent. 'Annoying' as applied to SQL tells me nothing. 'Annoying' as applied to the engineer making this incredibly stupid comment tells me that this engineer is either lazy, gullible, or just downright stupid. Have we seriously lost our ability to discern hype from reality that we let people and companies like this dictate our technology choices, throwing out decades of solid research in computer science for what some idiot at a company more specialized in marketing and PR than engineering tells us?
I'm willing and ready to hear well-thought out criticism of SQL and RDBMS. What I'm not willing and ready to hear is some idiot's feelings about SQL or RDBMS. You want to make a claim? Measure it. Present a report with data. But goddamn, if one of my reports came to me with this kind of stupidity, I'd give them a chance, but if they persisted, I'd fire them. This isn't revolutionary thought. It's not evolutionary thought. It's lazy idiots who don't want to learn SQL, a language so easy even business people with essentially no computer skills can pick up.
Why wasn't this the tagline for Mongo to begin with? At least it shows the arrogance, ignorance, and outright stupidity behind the database. This is not an engineer's comment. It cannot possibly be now, decades after SQL has become a de facto standard for some very good reasons (outlined in the article and elsewhere, won't rehash here). It is a marketer's comment, probably spoken by an engineer who isn't qualified to build simple demo apps, let alone anything as complex as a database. Mongo's CTO seems to fit this bill of marketer more than anything else or how would he be able to make the claims he makes with a straight face?
Our industry has a problem with fads and decisions based on feelings. Even if SQL is annoying, it's incredibly stupid to base your tech choices on feelings. It's even dumber to choose a product whose engineers build the product based on feelings. Last I checked, I thought we were an industry of engineers, trying to apply scientific principles and some human ingenuity to build software. Where does 'annoying' fit into that? Or other adjectives I often see thrown around on these boards like 'clean' and 'slick'. I know it's hard to quantify the quality of software and speak about it with any coherence, but this is beyond incoherent. 'Annoying' as applied to SQL tells me nothing. 'Annoying' as applied to the engineer making this incredibly stupid comment tells me that this engineer is either lazy, gullible, or just downright stupid. Have we seriously lost our ability to discern hype from reality that we let people and companies like this dictate our technology choices, throwing out decades of solid research in computer science for what some idiot at a company more specialized in marketing and PR than engineering tells us?
I'm willing and ready to hear well-thought out criticism of SQL and RDBMS. What I'm not willing and ready to hear is some idiot's feelings about SQL or RDBMS. You want to make a claim? Measure it. Present a report with data. But goddamn, if one of my reports came to me with this kind of stupidity, I'd give them a chance, but if they persisted, I'd fire them. This isn't revolutionary thought. It's not evolutionary thought. It's lazy idiots who don't want to learn SQL, a language so easy even business people with essentially no computer skills can pick up.