SQL Advisor

New NoSQL Language Unveiled As Debate Rages On

NoSQL oponents see no future for the language. Proponents, though, are building new products around it.

• By David Ramel
• 08/23/2011

Pretty much every blog, article or discussion you see about the SQL vs. NoSQL debate includes sage advice from a reasonable voice of authority along the lines of something like this:

Whoa! Let's calm down. No need to fight. It's not a which-is-better issue, because each (tool/approach/language/philosophy) has its use. They should be used together as needed to solve different kinds of problems according to their strengths ...

And so on.

So it was interesting to read a comment on a blog post that went against that grain:

I wish it was as simple as SQL & RDBMS is good for this and NoSQL is good for that. For me at least, the waters are much muddier than that.

Tony Bain made that comment on a blog post by Conor O'Mahony titled "The Future of the NoSQL, SQL, and RDBMS Markets." Bain goes on to discuss the issue in detail, with much of the discourse from the perspective of a database developer. It's definitely worth reading by you data devs. It's also noteworthy that the blog posting was prompted by an article in The Register with the subhead "World says 'No' to NoSQL."

Were it that easy. Just a week or so earlier, in fact, there was much buzz generated when Couchbase released a "flagship NoSQL database" and an entirely new NoSQL query language called UnQL.

Does that sound like the desperate last gasp of a major player in a dead movement? Or will we one day look back and recognize it as a major step in an industry transformation?

You tell me. Comment here or drop me a line. I'm just happy that Couchbase provided some pronunciation guidance, a pet peeve of mine. UnQL is pronounced like the word "Uncle."