Graph Databases Provide a Significant Advantage Over Well-Architected Relational Databases
guest reader writes:
The results of the great DB debate on The Register were announced. Although it was a close-run race, and RDBMS was well ahead at several points during the week before a late surge for graph DBs yesterday. Over 2,000 readers voted. This debate is a part of the current spotlight on databases.
Our first contributor, arguing FOR the motion, was Andy Pavlo, associate professor of databaseology at Carnegie Mellon University. Pavlo's starting point on Monday was that graph DBMSs are "fundamentally flawed and, for most applications, inferior to relational DBMSs."
Jim Webber, Neo4j's chief scientist and a professor of computer science at Newcastle University, arguing AGAINST, said in his rebuttal that he could not back the idea that "relational can do anything" and rejected the assertion that graph databases cannot properly support views and migrations.
Then, on Wednesday, Pavlo threw down the gauntlet, stating that abandoning the relational database model would be akin to "reinventing the wheel." He also doubled down on a public wager he'd previously made that graph databases won't overtake relational databases in 2030 by marketshare. He has promised that if he loses, Pavlo will replace his official CMU photo with one of him wearing a shirt that says "Graph Databases Are #1."
Webber then countered this in his Thursday argument, noting that the pending standard for graphs, GQL, is overseen by the same ISO committee that delivered SQL. If SQL extensions were enough to solve the graph problem, the committee wouldn't have bothered itself, he seemed to be saying. Instead, it decided graphs were different enough to warrant a full query language.
Webber also mentioned: In late 2010, I visited former colleagues at the University of Sydney, Australia. I gave a talk on graph databases and ended it by lightheartedly saying something like, "This technology category is going to catch on. You're going to ignore it for now, but in about a decade you will become interested and start telling us that we've done it all wrong."
Several papers from CIDR 2023 were cited in the discussion.
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