It sure seems like there’s a nascent trend that involves moving away from relational databases for storage, at least for stuff that will be exposed on the Web. First, Ning released their Web application platform that basically supports PHP and a Cobb // Nov 16, 2005 at 8:15 pm
Wednesday Fragments
Dissent! Holy smokes, can it be that the Congress is showing some spine? Have Republicans suddenly remembered that the founders knew what they were talking about when they separated powers? Could it be that political capital only goes as far…
Ditto Cobb
I don’t see RDBMSes going away any time soon. The issue is that the newbs don’t understand them (which is why MySQL is so popular and at the same time not even close to ACIDity).
When one has a solidly-designed data layer, adding new columns/tables are much easier as are data updates (no need to write that customer’s name in 5 different tables, just write it once in the cust_info table and you’re done, Bippie).
I’m all for the end users, the newbs and the rest to go for it with the non-RDBMS database. When the thing starts falling down under its own weight because too many functions are hanging off it (User-created MS Access/Excel “applications,” anyone?), and CrUDding data becomes a monumental chore, that’s when someone like me will come in to migrate the data to a professional relational platform, clean the data & code, and leave them with an easy-to-maintain application.