Welcome back to the wiki! For you it's all happening in one day but I'm staggering out pages by like a week every time.

Let's talk about MongoDB this time!

What's a MongoDB?

MongoDB is a database system different from the SQL-based ones you're probably more familiar with, like Microsoft SQL Server or what Azure has on offer. If you're just learning about the fact there's systems other than SQL, sorry for breaking your sky, and sorry again because it's about to get much more broken.

The system I'm telling you about today is, in my experience, operable through a command-line interface allowing you to hop into tables, write out queries to get the details you want, and... honestly you can do all four steps of the CRUD protocol (create, read, update, delete). As any good database should!

Of course, the reason it exists isn't just to be wacky and different. Different structures from SQL allow for different specialisations. They differ by storing data in key-value pairs, wide columns, graphs, or documents. Instead of SQL files, you might see JSON files, or maybe TXT files, or perhaps some entirely different, brand-new abstract terror of computational storage! (Maybe not that last one?)

The benefit here is in being able to scale faster than SQL servers, being able to adhere less to concise rules (thus improving flexibility), and being able to use other, less strict query languages, alongside SQL itself (as NoSQL can just as easily mean "Not only" SQL!)

Why would I want MongoDB?

Well, it's great for anything you wanna use a database for! On its site it proudly announces being part of the burning bandwagon rolling downhill into a minefield that is known as large language models, or "AI". I don't like AI, so I'll discuss anything except it, even though half of MongoDB's site is rambling on and on about AI-related nonsense. I'm doing my best to not cuss here.

MongoDB provides a few handy little examples with fun animated icons, seemingly centered on a plant-based webshop as an example, with MongoDB being able to:

• keep track of your inventory
• power your search algorithm
• help provide data for corporate growth charts
• provide geospatial data for transit info
• track transactional data

And probably a good deal more than that! This is just scratching at the surface and sniffing the tropical lemonade scent that comes off it!