MongoDB CTO Interviewed

Eliot Horowitz is the CTO and co-founder of 10gen, the company powering MongoDB. Recently, he was interviewed by How Software Is Built. A few of the highlights are quoted below.

What is the data model

I think the first question you have to ask about any database these days is, “What’s the data model?”

Instead of just jumping to the relational model, I love that nowadays we have choices and can really think through what works best for how our data will be stored and presented.

On more simple mapping of objects

There are probably 1,000 different ORMs in the world, so clearly, it’s an unsolved problem, and every week you hear about a new one coming out. That whole class of problems exists because there’s a very clunky mapping from objects to relational databases. With document databases, that mapping becomes much simpler.

In many cases, it enables a direct mapping. You can take your object and direct it toward the database. And when you do need to do a mapping, the whole class of problems is massively simplified.

I could not agree with this more. The single thing that I have enjoyed most about mapping data to Mongo is how it feels far more simple. Because Mongo has array and hash types built in, all you really need is a thin layer of turning those stock arrays and hashes into smarter objects. Really increases development speed.

On switching from MySQL

That means that if you’re coming from MySQL, it’s a pretty easy transition to MongoDB.

Definitely a good point. I tried several document databases and key/value stores before being introduced to Mongo. It was the first one that clicked.

Closing Thoughts

The interview was great and covered a lot of stuff. Whether you are new to Mongo or a mainstay, you’ll pick up some interesting bits from it.