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Posted to dev@couchdb.apache.org by ro...@gmail.com on 2012/02/19 17:58:00 UTC
Any experts care to answer this SO query?
I think this question on stack overflow expresses a lot of the
confusion in the marketplace about the current direction of couchdb. I
hope you'll forgive me posting this to the dev group, but as a couch
evangelist myself, I share Jonathan's pain.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9343868/confused-on-how-to-use-couchdb-on-android
I am feeling a bit more confident about the future of couchdb having
seen the activity in this forum over the past week. However I feel,
looking from the outside in, that the project does have a perception
problem.
The problem I think largely stems from the fact that there is nothing
on this page that reflects the online discussions that arose following
Damien's departure.
http://couchdb.apache.org/
So when you are searching for information on couchdb, you tend to see
a very stale project page, and then lots of much more recent online
posts elsewhere asking if couch is dead now that the founder has left.
I know there is a lot of sensible and sane discussion on other blogs,
but I really feel that the apache couchdb pages need to address the
matter head on and inform the community better as to the future.
As an aside, the decision to rebrand membase as couchbase has, in my
opinion, done untold damage. This is the real issue behind the
confusion and is something I think the couchdb project needs to work
on.
I'm happy to help where I can ... I love couch and use it as the
backend for many of my mobile projects. Having a restful database that
talks JSON is such a perfect fit for so many applications that really,
couchdb should be storming ahead of other nosql options and yet I find
myself having to work harder and harder to justify its use over (say)
mongo. The reason I am having to work harder is purely a perception
problem and hence I feel this is the area that needs a bit more work!
All that said, I'm so glad I joined the dev group last week, it's
given me a lot more confidence that things are moving in a positive
direction ...
Roger
Re: Any experts care to answer this SO query?
Posted by Jonathan Porta <ru...@gmail.com>.
Hi Roger,
To agree with your comment, I thought CouchDB was dead/dying until I
joined the mailing lists. I think CouchDB just needs to "sell" itself
a bit better, and somehow break out of how it is currently lumped in
with (perceptually) to Couchbase products.
Thanks for the suggestion. Prior to deciding I wanted to use CouchDB,
I have been using a post queue that I wrote. It's a service that
responds to connectivity events and persists the transactions in the
queue when it is in the correct state. My app just adds transactions
to it via the post queue service's API. The transactions are just
JSON strings. It works really well for persisting data from the
mobile device to the server.
But, it doesn't cover the other side of sync - pulling data from the
server. I thought if I could be running CouchDB on the Android
device, I can let the data eventually replicate, resulting in the
mobile device having it's needed data, and the server eventually
getting what the mobile app collected.
Do you know anything about Mobile Syncpoint?
Jonathan Porta
PO BOX 21365
Billings, MT 59104
On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 2:10 AM, <ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm so glad I'm not the only person finding it awesome but
> frustrating! I'm currently scheduled to give a talk on couchdb for
> mobile (specifically ios) in London but just know that the Q&A is
> going to be full of 'isn't couch dead / isn't everyone using mongo
> now' type questions.
>
> To look at your specific question on Android - have you considered an
> alternative architecture where you persist couch objects locally and
> then sync each object to the remote database when required? It could
> well be that your use case requires a heavier client side solution,
> but for the projects I'm working on I find this works really well when
> the number of objects in flight at any one time is low. I basically
> deserialise documents into custom objects which are persisted client
> side and then serialised on the way out again. I get the real benefit
> of couch when it comes to searching (I have some entertaining views)
> and also storing photos etc as attachments and in my case I can
> restrict this to being when the user is online. Obviously this
> approach is a compromise and may not be suitable for your use case.
>
> TouchDB looks like a really interesting option too ... although maybe
> not production ready yet.
>
> https://github.com/couchbaselabs/TouchDB-iOS
>
> Roger
>
>> If anyone wants to give me word on whether Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint
>> is the route I should go for Android, I would appreciate it! Still
>> trying to figure this out! ;)
>>
>> Jonathan Porta
Re: Any experts care to answer this SO query?
Posted by ro...@gmail.com.
I'm so glad I'm not the only person finding it awesome but
frustrating! I'm currently scheduled to give a talk on couchdb for
mobile (specifically ios) in London but just know that the Q&A is
going to be full of 'isn't couch dead / isn't everyone using mongo
now' type questions.
To look at your specific question on Android - have you considered an
alternative architecture where you persist couch objects locally and
then sync each object to the remote database when required? It could
well be that your use case requires a heavier client side solution,
but for the projects I'm working on I find this works really well when
the number of objects in flight at any one time is low. I basically
deserialise documents into custom objects which are persisted client
side and then serialised on the way out again. I get the real benefit
of couch when it comes to searching (I have some entertaining views)
and also storing photos etc as attachments and in my case I can
restrict this to being when the user is online. Obviously this
approach is a compromise and may not be suitable for your use case.
TouchDB looks like a really interesting option too ... although maybe
not production ready yet.
https://github.com/couchbaselabs/TouchDB-iOS
Roger
> If anyone wants to give me word on whether Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint
> is the route I should go for Android, I would appreciate it! Still
> trying to figure this out! ;)
>
> Jonathan Porta
Re: Any experts care to answer this SO query?
Posted by Jonathan Porta <ru...@gmail.com>.
No problem. I hope it wasn't too much of a rant.
It's just that CouchDB is an awesome project, but, I am not sure other
new comers will be as persistent as I have.
Once I wrap up my first CouchDB deployment in a few days, I will
contribute some helpful information to the Wiki. I have editing
privileges as of yesterday.
If anyone wants to give me word on whether Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint
is the route I should go for Android, I would appreciate it! Still
trying to figure this out! ;)
Jonathan Porta
On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 2:24 PM, Noah Slater <ns...@tumbolia.org> wrote:
> Thank you for this Jonathan, it has been very helpful for me. I've flagged
> the email and I'll review it again when I'm putting together a plan for the
> new website.
>
> The wiki, as always, could do with some love. If you have a bit of spare
> time, it would be cool if you could fix up any of the things you think are
> confusing. Just let me know your account and I'll give you edit access.
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 6:45 PM, Jonathan Porta <ru...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Roger, thanks for posting that!
>>
>> Being new to this community, I have spent more time confused than any
>> other time I have picked up a new technology. The confusion primary
>> stems from the multitude of Couchbase products that everyone talks
>> about, coupled with the fact that (seemingly) all of the online
>> content about CouchDB was written by people who now work at Couchbase.
>>
>> The difference in appeal between Couchbase's website and CouchDB's
>> website is huge. My initial thoughts were that CouchDB was mostly
>> abandoned as an Apache project, and that Couchbase was leading the
>> charge in further development. This misconception lead me to wasting
>> a lot of time with Couchbase Server, only to find out that everything
>> I just learned in the two O'Reilly books I just bought was mostly
>> wrong, as it did not apply to CouchDB. Basically, Couchbase Server is
>> Membase with a confusing name.
>>
>> Recovering from that mistake, I then stumble across Damien's blog post
>> about "The future of CouchDB: Couchbase". At this point, I am ready
>> to give up. I have spent days trying to figure out a new technology
>> that sounds incredible, but, I have not had any success.
>>
>> To further show how hard it was to get to where I am now, here is how
>> I started down this road:
>>
>> I easily found this talk done by J. Chris Anderson:
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9C2x54Of-M
>>
>> This got me pretty excited about the mobile CouchDB offering, yet, I
>> couldn't find much more information until I just Googled "J. Chris
>> Anderson CouchDB". This is how I discovered Couchbase, the company.
>> Seeing that J. Chris works there, I assumed Couchbase Server was a
>> distribution of CouchDB. I was wrong. In the past when I have had
>> issues like this, it is usually cleared up by reading through the
>> Wikipedia articles on the subject. As of the last time I checked, the
>> articles on Wikipedia were not very helpful in understanding the
>> differences between Couchone, Couchbase, CouchDB, CouchApp, Couchbase
>> Single Server, Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint, etc.
>>
>> Here is the internal dialog going on in my head:
>>
>> I finally found what I *think* might be the coveted CouchDB Android:
>> http://www.couchbase.com/wiki/display/couchbase/Couchbase+Mobile+Syncpoint
>>
>> Stop right there! There are two different products on that page?
>> Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint and TouchDB.
>>
>> TouchDB sounds like it is even further away from CouchDB, so I am not
>> going to look at that. At least the Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint has
>> the word Couch in it, so, maybe that is what I want? Though, I just
>> wasted a bunch of time with Couchbase Server, so I am a little weary
>> of looking at something with the Couchbase name stuck on it. I know
>> it doesn't work with CouchDB, and doesn't have a REST API. Again, I
>> was wrong! I guess Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint is compatible with
>> CouchDB, according to the Couchbase HTTP API Documentation (Am I
>> missing the joke here?)
>>
>> I end up on this page:
>> http://www.couchbase.com/wiki/display/couchbase/Android - All is going
>> well until I see "Couchbase HTTP API Reference" -
>> http://www.couchbase.com/docs/couchbase-api/index.html - Couchbase
>> doesn't have an HTTP API...I click that link. The title says:
>> "Couchbase", yet, the rest of the document says "CouchDB" It's like a
>> case of find+replace gone wrong. So... Is this the API for Couchbase,
>> CouchDB, or Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint? Where is the API for
>> Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint, that was, after all, the product page I
>> was just on. The document never mentions Syncpoint.
>>
>> The CouchDB Wiki isn't much help either. Here is the first thing I
>> see on the Android page: "These instructions are outdated" So, I
>> follow the link -
>> https://github.com/couchbase/Android-Couchbase-SourceBuild - there are
>> no instructions on how to use this. No links to instructions. At
>> this point, I am starting to think that maybe everyone just gave up on
>> the Android port. Why can I find loads of posts, videos, etc from
>> 2010 talking about how awesome CouchDB Mobile will be, but nothing in
>> recent months? Yep, CouchDB on Android must be dead.
>>
>> I keep searching and eventually find a link to this page:
>> http://www.couchbase.com/products-and-services/mobile-couchbase.
>> Unfortunately, both the links to the mobile versions are broken. It
>> just takes me to the homepage. At this point, I posted the
>> aforementioned SO question.
>>
>> Other Issues that may or may not dissuade a newcomer:
>> - The Fedora package in the Repo is version 1.0.2-7
>> - Downloads page does not indicate what you are downloading...source
>> or binary? It's source, but I had to download the tar file to know for
>> sure.
>> - Binaries would be nice to offer, especially for Windows.
>> - The Wiki could benefit from some serious TLC. Do we really need a
>> build guide for every OS? It seems that maintaining two or three
>> always up-to-date build/install guides would be more beneficial than
>> lots of guides that may or may not be up-to-date.
>> - The CouchDB homepage needs an attention grabbing...something, to
>> showcase to potential developers why CouchDB is awesome. Redis and
>> Node.js seem to do a better job at this, maybe some ideas can come
>> from their approach.
>>
>> </rant>
>>
>> It all boils down to:
>>
>> 1. How can I incorporate CouchDB into my Android project, and
>> replicate with a CouchDB instance elsewhere?
>>
>> 2. What can I do to help CouchDB make things easier for someone like
>> me to adopt CouchDB? More specifically, what is there that the
>> project team would allow me to help with in this area?
>>
>> I really really like the CouchDB project, but, I can't see how it will
>> continue to be a viable solution if newcomers to the technology
>> encounter issues similar to what I have encountered.
>>
>>
>> Jonathan Porta
>>
>> PO BOX 21365
>> Billings, MT 59104
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 9:58 AM, <ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I think this question on stack overflow expresses a lot of the
>> > confusion in the marketplace about the current direction of couchdb. I
>> > hope you'll forgive me posting this to the dev group, but as a couch
>> > evangelist myself, I share Jonathan's pain.
>> >
>> >
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9343868/confused-on-how-to-use-couchdb-on-android
>> >
>> > I am feeling a bit more confident about the future of couchdb having
>> > seen the activity in this forum over the past week. However I feel,
>> > looking from the outside in, that the project does have a perception
>> > problem.
>> >
>> > The problem I think largely stems from the fact that there is nothing
>> > on this page that reflects the online discussions that arose following
>> > Damien's departure.
>> >
>> > http://couchdb.apache.org/
>> >
>> > So when you are searching for information on couchdb, you tend to see
>> > a very stale project page, and then lots of much more recent online
>> > posts elsewhere asking if couch is dead now that the founder has left.
>> >
>> > I know there is a lot of sensible and sane discussion on other blogs,
>> > but I really feel that the apache couchdb pages need to address the
>> > matter head on and inform the community better as to the future.
>> >
>> > As an aside, the decision to rebrand membase as couchbase has, in my
>> > opinion, done untold damage. This is the real issue behind the
>> > confusion and is something I think the couchdb project needs to work
>> > on.
>> >
>> > I'm happy to help where I can ... I love couch and use it as the
>> > backend for many of my mobile projects. Having a restful database that
>> > talks JSON is such a perfect fit for so many applications that really,
>> > couchdb should be storming ahead of other nosql options and yet I find
>> > myself having to work harder and harder to justify its use over (say)
>> > mongo. The reason I am having to work harder is purely a perception
>> > problem and hence I feel this is the area that needs a bit more work!
>> >
>> > All that said, I'm so glad I joined the dev group last week, it's
>> > given me a lot more confidence that things are moving in a positive
>> > direction ...
>> >
>> > Roger
>>
Re: Any experts care to answer this SO query?
Posted by Noah Slater <ns...@tumbolia.org>.
Thank you for this Jonathan, it has been very helpful for me. I've flagged
the email and I'll review it again when I'm putting together a plan for the
new website.
The wiki, as always, could do with some love. If you have a bit of spare
time, it would be cool if you could fix up any of the things you think are
confusing. Just let me know your account and I'll give you edit access.
On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 6:45 PM, Jonathan Porta <ru...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Roger, thanks for posting that!
>
> Being new to this community, I have spent more time confused than any
> other time I have picked up a new technology. The confusion primary
> stems from the multitude of Couchbase products that everyone talks
> about, coupled with the fact that (seemingly) all of the online
> content about CouchDB was written by people who now work at Couchbase.
>
> The difference in appeal between Couchbase's website and CouchDB's
> website is huge. My initial thoughts were that CouchDB was mostly
> abandoned as an Apache project, and that Couchbase was leading the
> charge in further development. This misconception lead me to wasting
> a lot of time with Couchbase Server, only to find out that everything
> I just learned in the two O'Reilly books I just bought was mostly
> wrong, as it did not apply to CouchDB. Basically, Couchbase Server is
> Membase with a confusing name.
>
> Recovering from that mistake, I then stumble across Damien's blog post
> about "The future of CouchDB: Couchbase". At this point, I am ready
> to give up. I have spent days trying to figure out a new technology
> that sounds incredible, but, I have not had any success.
>
> To further show how hard it was to get to where I am now, here is how
> I started down this road:
>
> I easily found this talk done by J. Chris Anderson:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9C2x54Of-M
>
> This got me pretty excited about the mobile CouchDB offering, yet, I
> couldn't find much more information until I just Googled "J. Chris
> Anderson CouchDB". This is how I discovered Couchbase, the company.
> Seeing that J. Chris works there, I assumed Couchbase Server was a
> distribution of CouchDB. I was wrong. In the past when I have had
> issues like this, it is usually cleared up by reading through the
> Wikipedia articles on the subject. As of the last time I checked, the
> articles on Wikipedia were not very helpful in understanding the
> differences between Couchone, Couchbase, CouchDB, CouchApp, Couchbase
> Single Server, Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint, etc.
>
> Here is the internal dialog going on in my head:
>
> I finally found what I *think* might be the coveted CouchDB Android:
> http://www.couchbase.com/wiki/display/couchbase/Couchbase+Mobile+Syncpoint
>
> Stop right there! There are two different products on that page?
> Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint and TouchDB.
>
> TouchDB sounds like it is even further away from CouchDB, so I am not
> going to look at that. At least the Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint has
> the word Couch in it, so, maybe that is what I want? Though, I just
> wasted a bunch of time with Couchbase Server, so I am a little weary
> of looking at something with the Couchbase name stuck on it. I know
> it doesn't work with CouchDB, and doesn't have a REST API. Again, I
> was wrong! I guess Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint is compatible with
> CouchDB, according to the Couchbase HTTP API Documentation (Am I
> missing the joke here?)
>
> I end up on this page:
> http://www.couchbase.com/wiki/display/couchbase/Android - All is going
> well until I see "Couchbase HTTP API Reference" -
> http://www.couchbase.com/docs/couchbase-api/index.html - Couchbase
> doesn't have an HTTP API...I click that link. The title says:
> "Couchbase", yet, the rest of the document says "CouchDB" It's like a
> case of find+replace gone wrong. So... Is this the API for Couchbase,
> CouchDB, or Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint? Where is the API for
> Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint, that was, after all, the product page I
> was just on. The document never mentions Syncpoint.
>
> The CouchDB Wiki isn't much help either. Here is the first thing I
> see on the Android page: "These instructions are outdated" So, I
> follow the link -
> https://github.com/couchbase/Android-Couchbase-SourceBuild - there are
> no instructions on how to use this. No links to instructions. At
> this point, I am starting to think that maybe everyone just gave up on
> the Android port. Why can I find loads of posts, videos, etc from
> 2010 talking about how awesome CouchDB Mobile will be, but nothing in
> recent months? Yep, CouchDB on Android must be dead.
>
> I keep searching and eventually find a link to this page:
> http://www.couchbase.com/products-and-services/mobile-couchbase.
> Unfortunately, both the links to the mobile versions are broken. It
> just takes me to the homepage. At this point, I posted the
> aforementioned SO question.
>
> Other Issues that may or may not dissuade a newcomer:
> - The Fedora package in the Repo is version 1.0.2-7
> - Downloads page does not indicate what you are downloading...source
> or binary? It's source, but I had to download the tar file to know for
> sure.
> - Binaries would be nice to offer, especially for Windows.
> - The Wiki could benefit from some serious TLC. Do we really need a
> build guide for every OS? It seems that maintaining two or three
> always up-to-date build/install guides would be more beneficial than
> lots of guides that may or may not be up-to-date.
> - The CouchDB homepage needs an attention grabbing...something, to
> showcase to potential developers why CouchDB is awesome. Redis and
> Node.js seem to do a better job at this, maybe some ideas can come
> from their approach.
>
> </rant>
>
> It all boils down to:
>
> 1. How can I incorporate CouchDB into my Android project, and
> replicate with a CouchDB instance elsewhere?
>
> 2. What can I do to help CouchDB make things easier for someone like
> me to adopt CouchDB? More specifically, what is there that the
> project team would allow me to help with in this area?
>
> I really really like the CouchDB project, but, I can't see how it will
> continue to be a viable solution if newcomers to the technology
> encounter issues similar to what I have encountered.
>
>
> Jonathan Porta
>
> PO BOX 21365
> Billings, MT 59104
>
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 9:58 AM, <ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think this question on stack overflow expresses a lot of the
> > confusion in the marketplace about the current direction of couchdb. I
> > hope you'll forgive me posting this to the dev group, but as a couch
> > evangelist myself, I share Jonathan's pain.
> >
> >
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9343868/confused-on-how-to-use-couchdb-on-android
> >
> > I am feeling a bit more confident about the future of couchdb having
> > seen the activity in this forum over the past week. However I feel,
> > looking from the outside in, that the project does have a perception
> > problem.
> >
> > The problem I think largely stems from the fact that there is nothing
> > on this page that reflects the online discussions that arose following
> > Damien's departure.
> >
> > http://couchdb.apache.org/
> >
> > So when you are searching for information on couchdb, you tend to see
> > a very stale project page, and then lots of much more recent online
> > posts elsewhere asking if couch is dead now that the founder has left.
> >
> > I know there is a lot of sensible and sane discussion on other blogs,
> > but I really feel that the apache couchdb pages need to address the
> > matter head on and inform the community better as to the future.
> >
> > As an aside, the decision to rebrand membase as couchbase has, in my
> > opinion, done untold damage. This is the real issue behind the
> > confusion and is something I think the couchdb project needs to work
> > on.
> >
> > I'm happy to help where I can ... I love couch and use it as the
> > backend for many of my mobile projects. Having a restful database that
> > talks JSON is such a perfect fit for so many applications that really,
> > couchdb should be storming ahead of other nosql options and yet I find
> > myself having to work harder and harder to justify its use over (say)
> > mongo. The reason I am having to work harder is purely a perception
> > problem and hence I feel this is the area that needs a bit more work!
> >
> > All that said, I'm so glad I joined the dev group last week, it's
> > given me a lot more confidence that things are moving in a positive
> > direction ...
> >
> > Roger
>
Re: Any experts care to answer this SO query?
Posted by Jonathan Porta <ru...@gmail.com>.
Roger, thanks for posting that!
Being new to this community, I have spent more time confused than any
other time I have picked up a new technology. The confusion primary
stems from the multitude of Couchbase products that everyone talks
about, coupled with the fact that (seemingly) all of the online
content about CouchDB was written by people who now work at Couchbase.
The difference in appeal between Couchbase's website and CouchDB's
website is huge. My initial thoughts were that CouchDB was mostly
abandoned as an Apache project, and that Couchbase was leading the
charge in further development. This misconception lead me to wasting
a lot of time with Couchbase Server, only to find out that everything
I just learned in the two O'Reilly books I just bought was mostly
wrong, as it did not apply to CouchDB. Basically, Couchbase Server is
Membase with a confusing name.
Recovering from that mistake, I then stumble across Damien's blog post
about "The future of CouchDB: Couchbase". At this point, I am ready
to give up. I have spent days trying to figure out a new technology
that sounds incredible, but, I have not had any success.
To further show how hard it was to get to where I am now, here is how
I started down this road:
I easily found this talk done by J. Chris Anderson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9C2x54Of-M
This got me pretty excited about the mobile CouchDB offering, yet, I
couldn't find much more information until I just Googled "J. Chris
Anderson CouchDB". This is how I discovered Couchbase, the company.
Seeing that J. Chris works there, I assumed Couchbase Server was a
distribution of CouchDB. I was wrong. In the past when I have had
issues like this, it is usually cleared up by reading through the
Wikipedia articles on the subject. As of the last time I checked, the
articles on Wikipedia were not very helpful in understanding the
differences between Couchone, Couchbase, CouchDB, CouchApp, Couchbase
Single Server, Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint, etc.
Here is the internal dialog going on in my head:
I finally found what I *think* might be the coveted CouchDB Android:
http://www.couchbase.com/wiki/display/couchbase/Couchbase+Mobile+Syncpoint
Stop right there! There are two different products on that page?
Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint and TouchDB.
TouchDB sounds like it is even further away from CouchDB, so I am not
going to look at that. At least the Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint has
the word Couch in it, so, maybe that is what I want? Though, I just
wasted a bunch of time with Couchbase Server, so I am a little weary
of looking at something with the Couchbase name stuck on it. I know
it doesn't work with CouchDB, and doesn't have a REST API. Again, I
was wrong! I guess Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint is compatible with
CouchDB, according to the Couchbase HTTP API Documentation (Am I
missing the joke here?)
I end up on this page:
http://www.couchbase.com/wiki/display/couchbase/Android - All is going
well until I see "Couchbase HTTP API Reference" -
http://www.couchbase.com/docs/couchbase-api/index.html - Couchbase
doesn't have an HTTP API...I click that link. The title says:
"Couchbase", yet, the rest of the document says "CouchDB" It's like a
case of find+replace gone wrong. So... Is this the API for Couchbase,
CouchDB, or Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint? Where is the API for
Couchbase Mobile Syncpoint, that was, after all, the product page I
was just on. The document never mentions Syncpoint.
The CouchDB Wiki isn't much help either. Here is the first thing I
see on the Android page: "These instructions are outdated" So, I
follow the link -
https://github.com/couchbase/Android-Couchbase-SourceBuild - there are
no instructions on how to use this. No links to instructions. At
this point, I am starting to think that maybe everyone just gave up on
the Android port. Why can I find loads of posts, videos, etc from
2010 talking about how awesome CouchDB Mobile will be, but nothing in
recent months? Yep, CouchDB on Android must be dead.
I keep searching and eventually find a link to this page:
http://www.couchbase.com/products-and-services/mobile-couchbase.
Unfortunately, both the links to the mobile versions are broken. It
just takes me to the homepage. At this point, I posted the
aforementioned SO question.
Other Issues that may or may not dissuade a newcomer:
- The Fedora package in the Repo is version 1.0.2-7
- Downloads page does not indicate what you are downloading...source
or binary? It's source, but I had to download the tar file to know for
sure.
- Binaries would be nice to offer, especially for Windows.
- The Wiki could benefit from some serious TLC. Do we really need a
build guide for every OS? It seems that maintaining two or three
always up-to-date build/install guides would be more beneficial than
lots of guides that may or may not be up-to-date.
- The CouchDB homepage needs an attention grabbing...something, to
showcase to potential developers why CouchDB is awesome. Redis and
Node.js seem to do a better job at this, maybe some ideas can come
from their approach.
</rant>
It all boils down to:
1. How can I incorporate CouchDB into my Android project, and
replicate with a CouchDB instance elsewhere?
2. What can I do to help CouchDB make things easier for someone like
me to adopt CouchDB? More specifically, what is there that the
project team would allow me to help with in this area?
I really really like the CouchDB project, but, I can't see how it will
continue to be a viable solution if newcomers to the technology
encounter issues similar to what I have encountered.
Jonathan Porta
PO BOX 21365
Billings, MT 59104
On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 9:58 AM, <ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think this question on stack overflow expresses a lot of the
> confusion in the marketplace about the current direction of couchdb. I
> hope you'll forgive me posting this to the dev group, but as a couch
> evangelist myself, I share Jonathan's pain.
>
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9343868/confused-on-how-to-use-couchdb-on-android
>
> I am feeling a bit more confident about the future of couchdb having
> seen the activity in this forum over the past week. However I feel,
> looking from the outside in, that the project does have a perception
> problem.
>
> The problem I think largely stems from the fact that there is nothing
> on this page that reflects the online discussions that arose following
> Damien's departure.
>
> http://couchdb.apache.org/
>
> So when you are searching for information on couchdb, you tend to see
> a very stale project page, and then lots of much more recent online
> posts elsewhere asking if couch is dead now that the founder has left.
>
> I know there is a lot of sensible and sane discussion on other blogs,
> but I really feel that the apache couchdb pages need to address the
> matter head on and inform the community better as to the future.
>
> As an aside, the decision to rebrand membase as couchbase has, in my
> opinion, done untold damage. This is the real issue behind the
> confusion and is something I think the couchdb project needs to work
> on.
>
> I'm happy to help where I can ... I love couch and use it as the
> backend for many of my mobile projects. Having a restful database that
> talks JSON is such a perfect fit for so many applications that really,
> couchdb should be storming ahead of other nosql options and yet I find
> myself having to work harder and harder to justify its use over (say)
> mongo. The reason I am having to work harder is purely a perception
> problem and hence I feel this is the area that needs a bit more work!
>
> All that said, I'm so glad I joined the dev group last week, it's
> given me a lot more confidence that things are moving in a positive
> direction ...
>
> Roger
Re: Any experts care to answer this SO query?
Posted by Noah Slater <ns...@tumbolia.org>.
Thank you for your mail, Roger.
Once we get 1.2.0 out of the door, I will be turning my attention to the
website. Are there any specific suggestions you'd like to make? I don't
think we should mention Damien, specifically. There's no need to draw any
further attention to it. We're an Apache project. Visionaries and leaders
come and go, life moves on, etc. If you think we should mention it, what do
you think we should say?
As for Couchbase. Yes. I agree. I think the naming is terrible, and I think
it harms our community, but there is very little I can do about
that. Pursuant to the ASF trademark policies, I could make a case to the
legal mailing list, and ask for guidance. I think the Couchbase name fails
the likelihood of confusion test, as stipulated. What do other people think
about this?
cf. http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/
On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 4:58 PM, <ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think this question on stack overflow expresses a lot of the
> confusion in the marketplace about the current direction of couchdb. I
> hope you'll forgive me posting this to the dev group, but as a couch
> evangelist myself, I share Jonathan's pain.
>
>
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9343868/confused-on-how-to-use-couchdb-on-android
>
> I am feeling a bit more confident about the future of couchdb having
> seen the activity in this forum over the past week. However I feel,
> looking from the outside in, that the project does have a perception
> problem.
>
> The problem I think largely stems from the fact that there is nothing
> on this page that reflects the online discussions that arose following
> Damien's departure.
>
> http://couchdb.apache.org/
>
> So when you are searching for information on couchdb, you tend to see
> a very stale project page, and then lots of much more recent online
> posts elsewhere asking if couch is dead now that the founder has left.
>
> I know there is a lot of sensible and sane discussion on other blogs,
> but I really feel that the apache couchdb pages need to address the
> matter head on and inform the community better as to the future.
>
> As an aside, the decision to rebrand membase as couchbase has, in my
> opinion, done untold damage. This is the real issue behind the
> confusion and is something I think the couchdb project needs to work
> on.
>
> I'm happy to help where I can ... I love couch and use it as the
> backend for many of my mobile projects. Having a restful database that
> talks JSON is such a perfect fit for so many applications that really,
> couchdb should be storming ahead of other nosql options and yet I find
> myself having to work harder and harder to justify its use over (say)
> mongo. The reason I am having to work harder is purely a perception
> problem and hence I feel this is the area that needs a bit more work!
>
> All that said, I'm so glad I joined the dev group last week, it's
> given me a lot more confidence that things are moving in a positive
> direction ...
>
> Roger
>