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From: Wout Mertens <wmertens@cisco.com>
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Subject: Re: [user]  Re: The Blog
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 16:18:09 +0100
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On Feb 9, 2009, at 3:57 PM, Noah Slater wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 09:51:18AM -0500, Adam Petty wrote:
>> Could this thread be added to the wiki - with only minor editing  
>> for length
>> - maybe as "a RDBMS vs couch 'Discussion' ?"  or something  
>> similar?"...
>
> We've learnt from the book that such comparisons tend to be harmful.
>
> They lead people into thinking that there is a direct meaningful  
> comparison.
>
> Fundamentally, CouchDB and RDMS solve different problems.

I dunno, I think it would be interesting to compare the main benefits  
of each so that you know what the strong points of each are.

For example, suppose you implement schema-free in an RDBMS by adding a  
text field that contains a JSON string. You still keep some of the  
metadata, like _rev and _id, in proper fields.

However, thinking about that, it means you will need to re-implement  
everything CouchDB does, like views and replication.

To be honest, I think saying RDBMS and CouchDB are for different  
solutions is just you guys being nice. I think that any application  
would benefit from using the CouchDB model and only in very specific,  
very demanding cases an RDBMS would be better. I can't think of any  
examples though.

So here's my challenge to the mailing list, it's pretty much the same  
one that MrDonut posted: Give us an example of something that would be  
better be done with an RDBMS and something that would better be done  
with CouchDB.

I'll help you: I think it would be easier to create a wiki with  
CouchDB than with an RDBMS. It is possible in both but CouchDB just  
makes it easier. I suppose we'd have to ask the http://couch.it guys  
to know if that's true.

I don't know what would be done better in an RDBMS. Performance  
logging perhaps? Something with really stringent schema requirements?

Wout.