| Total disagree. The most important job of a startup at startup time is probing the market. If you have a billion customers each with a million records you are the Google Maps location thingy and are not a startup anymore and a relational solution may, or may not, work. If you have ten users the ideal database is probably ten interns and some whiteboards. I'm not kidding. I observe there is a common claim brought up every week on HN about fake it till you make it. You don't automate (insert menial task here) until you have ten customers. I observe there is another common claim brought up every week on HN about how you need a massively scalable design which can never change from day one, because your schema, either formal or informal, is perfect and unchanging, LOL. Those two stylistic outlooks are not compatible. Start with something that has too many features, too many abilities, too much room for expansion, like a relational DB, and then later on if you need to, put some stuff on another platform. IF you need to. IF your company survives. Lots of IF. |