
Open-RethinkDB meeting notes - deepanchor
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13TsZoWckcvJpprpL1zU54xsf0Zqm8mfmLkCHZcZbTMI/edit
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cyberferret
I am not a stakeholder, but I just wanted to congratulate you on keeping the
momentum going on the Open-RethinkDB project. I've seen several attempts to
restart a stalled/dead OS project in the past, so I realise how much energy it
takes to keep the ball rolling after the initial flurry of
activity/outrage/frustration etc.

RethinkDB is something we were looking at for a large project. In one way I am
glad we didn't choose that platform for it, but in another way, the efforts by
the open source community to keep it alive has given me confidence to revisit
the platform for future projects.

~~~
kinkdr
> RethinkDB is something we were looking at for a large project

From the comments in HN it feels like this was always the case for RethinkDB;
folks looking at it, admire it, thinking about using it in their next project
but, for one reason or the another, never ending up using it. Which is really
a pity.

I don't know about the others, but I am really curious to know why you ended
up not picking RethinkDB for your project.

~~~
jinjin2
We were considering RethinkDB for a mobile project, but ended up using
Postgres on the backend and Realm in the apps with a custom REST API in
between. This worked out really well for us, apart from all the work on
implementing our own REST based sync (this was before Realm launched their
backend product, which might have made a lot of that work unnecessary).

The reason we ended up with Postgres over RethinkDB was that our data model
was very relationship heavy in ways that were easier to represent in a
relational database than with RethinkDB's document model.

~~~
cyberferret
+1. To expand on my own post above - one of the biggest things that scares me
away from NoSQL solutions, apart from the fact that the schema is not 'set in
stone' and can be changed anytime by anyone, is the relationship aspect.

Because we build business and ERP extensions most of the time, the requirement
for multiple joins across sometimes up to 7 or 8 tables was what I found
difficult to manage in NoSQL data stores. Foreign keys, LEFT OUTER JOIN,
SELECT DISTINCT, GROUP BY etc. are all second nature to me in SQL, but totally
Greek to me in NoSQL.

~~~
dkersten
RethinkDB has joins and I found its grouping to be straightforward and super
powerful. Selecting distinct values is as simple as putting _.distinct()_ at
the end of your ReQL. While it doesn't have foreign keys, any value can act as
one as long as it holds a tables primary key (or other indexed fields), in
which case you can do _db.table( 'other_table').get(primary_key_val)_ (or
_getAll(foregin_key_val, {index: 'my_index'})_ if not the PK, but otherwise
indexed).

Granted, it won't validate that the keys exist, however (since its schemaless
at the DB level), so nothing will prevent you from inserting a document with
foreign keys that are invalid, but from a querying point of view, foreign keys
are easy. Would be nice if you could set insert/update-checked constraints
though.

~~~
cyberferret
Useful cheat sheet. I've bookmarked for later study and research. Thanks.

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bcantrill
It's great to see that getting to an open source foundation is a top priority!
As a member of the CNCF's technical oversight committee (and as someone who
personally loves RethinkDB), I would love to champion RethinkDB for the CNCF
-- but it matters much more to me that it gets to an open source foundation
than it is that it lands at the CNCF in particular. RethinkDB team: please
reach out to me or to any other CNCF TOC member if we can help!

~~~
deepanchor
From an outsider's perspective, CNCF seems like it would be a great fit for a
project like Rethinkdb: it looks to have the forward momentum Rethink needs
right now, and the proximity to other high profile projects like Kubernetes
could encourage adoption.

~~~
philips
I would love to see a RethinkDB Operator created[1]!

[1] [https://coreos.com/blog/introducing-
operators.html](https://coreos.com/blog/introducing-operators.html)

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misterbowfinger
For those involved, any word on when they'll be putting up a post-mortem on
how they ended up shutting down?

~~~
nodesocket
I am also really curious, and think it could be a valuable asset to the
greater startup community. The best tech/product and design doesn't always
win.

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zubairq
yep good to see clear info about the future so soon after joining stripe!

