NoSQL on Heroku

Given my current kick of learning and using more NoSQL approaches, I find the timing of Heroku’s growing NoSQL support most excellent! ..and Adam from Heroku has his say here.

The Take-aways are this:

• It’s about adding tools to the toolbelt, not taking away SQL
• Polyglot Persistence, which is to use multiple datastores in an app
• NoSQL is a great match for cloud services
• Heroku will continue to add NoSQL support, and continue their great support of Postgres as well

Adam also talks a little about what a datastore is and whether memcached qualifies as one.

I know we could get VPS hosting and setup Capistrano to deploy a rails app, but using Heroku takes a lot of friction out of deploying rails. It’s easy to scale up, and they have great support for plugging in things like exception and performance monitoring. If TimesheetToaster takes off, I know I’d be able to scale to meet demand on Heroku.

NoSQL database evaluations

I’ve started reading more seriously about different NoSQL databases.  It seems that MongoDB and CouchDB are both quite good, in addition to RavenDB.  MongoDB has a good both a good .Net library and a few Ruby libraries.  CouchDB has a few Ruby libraries, but I’m not sure about .Net.  RavenDB, of course, has .Net API and is written in .Net.

Rob Conery laid down a public challenge a while ago to build your own blog.  I’ve seen a few people do it including Rob; and I think its worth while.  I’ve been toying with writing a blog to incorporate into the csinc site using a NoSQL database.  It’s a pretty simple data model, and I like the idea of file-based storage making backups easier.  Our current hosting plan limits what I can do however; the plan expires a little later this year though.

So I’m thinking.  And I’m thinking I wish someone would do a NoSQL presentation at our local .Net user group.  Maybe, and this is a very big maybe, I’ll put one together.  A blog engine demo with each of the above three db’s.  As an introduction to NoSQL.  Which is probably better called NotRelationalDB, because it’s data storage that doesn’t use relational data.  Just a thought.

The great personal post

So I debated even posting this, but it’s been a while since my last post and I find it interesting when others mention what they’ve been up to.. so here goes.

My family and I just recently took a nice tip to Northern California, and it was a lot of fun for all.  It took about 2,300 miles of driving so it’s a good thing I like to drive.  We broke that up into chunks and stayed at various places along the way.  I won’t bore you with all the details.  Instead, I’ll just give a few recommendations and highlights.

You may have noticed if you follow me on Twitter, that I was in the same area (San Fran) as Rob Conery at about the same time.  It would have been nice to meet Rob in person, but we just missed each other.  He did set a trap to turn me evil over sushi, but we managed to dodge that too. ;)  Besides that, it was all family time and working for me.

First, I am very impressed with the Redwoods.  They are amazing trees; learned lots of things I didn’t know.  We also went on a canopy tour here.  Definitely recommended!  A fun hike if you are in the area is Fern Canyon in Prarie Creek State Park, CA.  It was used in Jurassic Park 2, and looks just like it.  But bring shoes that can get wet as it’s hard to avoid getting your feet wet.  It can be done, but it’s much more enjoyable if you’re not trying to balance logs and rocks.

The rest of the trip was also fun, but I’d like to finish with some recommendations.

• Pick up a travel magazine to plan a road trip. You learn about places you might not otherwise know to go to.
• GPS! Normally we’d print and follow directions. This time we borrowed a Tom Tom and will be buying one.
• You can get some pretty good last minute hotel deals. We paid the most for the one hotel we booked in advance.
• Mary’s Pizza shack in Santa Rosa has great pizza.
• Screamin Mimi’s ice cream is worth the stop if you’re near Sebastapol, CA
• Scott’s Valley Market in Santa Cruz has an awesome buffet.
• Also liked Yogizmo in Scotts Valley
• Avoid tourist traps, and ask locals for recommendations.
• Take a road trip adventure with your family and don’t over plan. Discovery is part of the fun.

I’m grateful we were able to take a trip like this, and thankful my work allows me to be a bit flexible at times.  My one minor regret was not meeting up with Rob, but that wasn’t the point of the trip anyway.  (Sorry Rob, I’m still a fan though)