
Blockchain 2018 == NoSQL 2009 - ognyankulev
https://blog.beerriot.com/2018/06/05/blockchain-2018-nosql-2009/
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karmakaze
The key difference is that NoSQL was being developed and used to solve
specific issues with using traditional databases. They were implementations of
solutions to problems. Blockchain is a solution in search of problems.

By all means I support the research and development of blockchain
technologies, but most applications are impractical thus far. The backlash
against blockchain is a natural levelling mechanism combating the hyping and
over-application of as yet inappropriate tech. As those in the know we should
aim for the correct balance rather than blindly support it in hopes of future
possible benefits. But as always, be informed and follow what you believe.

~~~
tinus_hn
A blockchain can prove historic data. That’s quite useful in some situations
but making money off of it is hard.

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thisisit
Please don't go by the title. It is tongue in cheek but on reading the article
will actually clear author's position. He is a supporter/worked on both
technologies.

Author's position is that "haters" brought NoSQL down. (Side note - With this
usage of "haters" I wonder if "critic" will ever be seen outside a
dictionary).And same is happening with Blockchain. Too many critics. NoSQL
proponents should help Blockchain because of the shared camaraderie of being a
technology which were/are criticized heavily.

The main point of the article, like most in this space, is to re-define the
word blockchain. What exactly is it? As per author it is byzantine fault
tolerant state machine replication or BFTSMR. But there is not much to be said
aside from the fact that "blockchain shouldn't be written off, just yet".

While agree on not writing off blockchain yet, I can't help but ask if
blockchain solved BFTSMR - it happened over 9 years ago. And people/companies
dint jump in until 1-2 years ago. So most of these people/companies are just
following the hype train.

~~~
vec
Except that (to use your acronym) BFTSMRs are fairly common and well
understood. Git, to choose the obvious example, probably qualifies.

The only thing that's new about blockchain is that it removes the requirement
for a quorum of nodes in the network to trust one another. It achieves this
solitary feature by means of _forcing all updates to be as computationally
inefficient as is economically feasable_. Even then the security guarantees
only hold as long as no single party can directly or indirectly control 51% of
the network's collective computing power.

Aside from the cryptocurrency use case, that's a fantastically unattractive
feature profile. The more fully I grasp how much of blockchain's promises rest
on proof of work as a cornerstone the less optimistic I am the technology will
ever have any useful real world applications other than serving as the
mcguffin in weird zero sum securities market games.

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throwawayjava
The big difference is that NoSQL (and XMl, and...) were always primarily
_developer_ tools and the hype/investment was always scoped more-or-less to
that environment.

My parents never asked me about NoSQL, and celebrities didn't sell/promote
IPOs for companies built around XML processing libraries...

The author hits on this in the end:

 _> There are some very real things to worry about in association with
Blockchain. Cryptocurrencies are not investment strategies, and are not going
to have any of the promised power-distribution and -equalization effects they
peddle while their value and cost fluctuate so wildly._

Companies and VCs investing in NoSQL databases _really were_ trying to
creating business around _developer tooling_. But most blockchain companies
aren't selling themselves as developer tooling companies. The rest of the
comparison seems less important than that distinction.

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jchanimal
The missing ingredient in the first wave of NoSQL was ACID transactions.
(Disclosure, I was an early contributor to Apache CouchDB and Couchbase
Mobile).

Now that we have global ACID transaction algorithms like Google Spanner's and
FaunaDB's (my current employer), mission critical apps are moving to NoSQL
because multi-region consistency is safer and easier to deal with than RDBMS
scale out. With ACID transactions, temporal storage, and object-level
security, these distributed databases can beat blockchain at its own game by
becoming a scalable runtime for smart contract applications, with all of the
safety but with the flexibility of a database.

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zzzcpan
The difference is, governments were not actively trying to regulate or outlaw
NoSQL, unlike cryptocurrencies, so NoSQL did manage to win eventually.

~~~
sebazzz
Blockchain is of course much wider than cryptocurrencies and is the underlying
technology. Blockchain is not being outlawed or discouraged, cryptocurrencies
are.

The point is that many companies have now a hammer (blockchain) and are
seperately searching for a nail to use it with when all they have is screws.

~~~
pdpi
> Blockchain is of course much wider than cryptocurrencies

This is a weird position.

In the sense that the concept of a "blockchain" is not tied to
cryptocurrencies, they're really just an old, well-understood data structure
(e.g. the Git datamodel is fundamentally a blockchain, except generalised from
a linked list to a DAG), and it's neither novel nor the focus of the current
craze.

In the sense of a decentralised distributed system, the only fully
decentralised consensus layer I know of (Nakamoto consensus) literally depends
on being used to host a cryptocurrency for its security guarantees.

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arisAlexis
nosql is a databse system, blockchain mission is to enable trustless immutable
unstoppable appications and miney transmission worldwide to change society.
comparing apples with hot dogs here

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exabrial
2006 ESB

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
2001 XML

~~~
welly
1998 DHTML

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mianos
CORBA in the mid 90s. It was meant to be revolutionary.

~~~
ForHackernews
SOAP XML

~~~
arisAlexis
bread

