

Ask HN: What is a good, modern database technology to learn? - tomrod

Howdy all!<p>Economic researcher here. I taught myself MySQL for a project and it&#x27;s been enjoyable, though not without the occasional issue.<p>I chose MySQL mainly because I had heard of it before. I&#x27;m sure that wasn&#x27;t the wisest way to choose, but it made the selection process much easier.<p>Now that I&#x27;ve got a bit of MySQL under my belt, I&#x27;d like to branch out to some other database systems.<p>I&#x27;ve heard good things about NoSQL, MongoDB, as well as larger systems like Cassandra.<p>What I&#x27;d like to know is your recommendations. If you feel up to it, having your personal guide to best tech per function (e.g. use _this_ database system for website content management, use _that_ for static data access, etc.) would be awesome.<p>Thanks everyone!
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LarryMade2
I guess part of it is do you want to collect data, or analyse and massage the
data.

Just collecting data? NoSQL looks good, you can throw stuff in and get it out
easy, but moving bits around is where it gets tricky. You will notice a lot of
noSQL examples are forums, blogs, CMSs and such that don't get much action in
changes, just additions and mixed media too.

If you want to move bits, crunch numbers, mix and match, etc. SQLish DBs will
make those tasks easier. Queries may be long data sets spread out but you can
assuredly get out the results you want.

What do you want to do is pretty important on what to choose. Take your target
purpose and see if you can find examples in that database if there aren't many
even close that might indicate its not currently be as easy to accomplish.

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marshray
One SQL database is all you need. (for now)

Learn a new programming language instead, something completely unlike any
you're already comfortable with.

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danso
What is it that you want to _do_?

Having taught myself SQL, starting off with Access, I can say you've still got
a lot to learn...no single project can cover the depth of database operational
issues that are common to all databases. I wouldn't branch off to something
else unless you have a solid project in mind where a non-SQL system is ideal
for

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tomrod
It's a fair question. More than anything, I'm looking to learn the relative
strengths of the common database systems.

Specific to my particular needs, a database system that allows good
integration with R/python/Fortran is a must for research. The ideal system
would allow for easy data manipulation and a nice suite of statistical and
aggregation functions (e.g. MySQL has average, standard dev, but no median
function).

