Typical Programmer - Relational Database Experts Jump The MapReduce Shark

Typical Programmer - Relational Database Experts Jump The MapReduce Shark: "In this article relational database experts David DeWitt and Michael Stonebraker compare MapReduce to traditional relational database systems (RDBMSs) and find MapReduce wanting. They make some strong points in favor or relational databases, but the comparison is not appropriate. When I finished reading the article I was thinking that the authors did not understand MapReduce or the idea of data in the cloud, or why programmers might be excited about non-RDBMS ways to manage data."

"MapReduce has the same relationship to RDBMSs as my motorcycle has to a snowplow — it’s a step backwards in snowplow technology if you look at it that way."

from the comments to this post:

"Other articles I’m inspired to write based on the referenced article: I tried using MapReduce to create a website, and it sucks compared to markup with CSS. It doesn’t have any concept of how to style a website. MapReduce is a serious step backward in terms of web design.

I also tried to have MapReduce babysit my kids, and I came back half an hour later to find that it was just sitting there crunching data, and wasn’t watching them at all. This thing can’t do anything at all.

Also, compared to a standard hammer, this MapReduce things is really crappy at pounding nails into things."