I keep hearing this talk of SQL scalability is really going to be it's downfall in the end, and how Java+XML solutions are on the rise.

Is this a bad time to be studying to do Database Development? Especially if SQL is going to go by the wayside?

I've also heard of Non-relational Databases may be the future too? But im skeptical because it seems like so many small companies rely on SQL to store records and such. Im studying T-SQL right now since there seems to be alot of jobs that use MS SQL Server 05/08 but am I wasting my time? Is SQL end coming to a close soon?

no

depends what you mean by "soon"

before you reach retirement age? not likely

where do you think all these articles talking about these things are getting these "ideas" from?

from mars... or maybe uranus

It boils down to a simple case of "follow the money" in my opinion. Articles exist to make money... Normally for the author, but always for the publisher.

If an article can persude you to buy more articles (in this case by convincing the reader that some new technology is "the coming thing"), then that article effectively sells additional articles on that new technology.

I work with non-relational databases, relational databases, and XML every day. I've never been a big Java fan, and am even less of a fan now that Java is an Oracle product... Any time any vendor owns a "standard", the standard itself has been compromised and it becomes just another product in the marketplace.

-PatP

Do you work with more relational or non-relational databases? And do you think the future is pointing towards one of the other? Im really curious if this "nosql" movement is going to be taking over classic RDBMS's. I really dont want to be learning a product that's gonna be gone in a few years (altho I dont see how it would be, basically everyone uses a database of some kind now). T-SQL just seemed to be kinda on the rise right now.

not a chance (if by "taking over" you mean will existing rdbms implementations be converted)

nosql is more suited to large scale data implementations, like on the scale of a facebook or twitter

don't forget, many of the nosql implementations are "EAV on steroids"

define "few"

how close are you to retirement?


oracle is going to position mysql as the sqlserver killer

watch out, microsoft

^^ Hhaha well retirement is awhile away.
But if something were to completely take over SQL what do YOU think it would be.

I was going to learn Oracle, but right now at least around my area most buisinesses seem to be using MS SQL, and web stuff seems to be on MYSQL (which i've used before)

Oracle is just too expensive from what I've heard for smaller companies to use.

Given that no one here believes that anything will in the foreseeable future (and by that we mean a full career span), what do you hope to gain from an answer?

pootle flump ur codings are working excelent.

I'm around 90% relational most of the time... A given week can fluctate quite a bit, but most of my life is in rows, columns, and keys!

SQL is the current king of the database market, and for the foreseeable future (decade or three) it will probably stay king of the database market.

No product or technology lives forever. There will be a SQL Killer someday, but I'm not likely to live long enough to see it.

-PatP

The thing is that it is so omnipresent in the market right now that even if the SQL killer came round tomorrow there would be enough work to sustain a substantial workforce for decades.

It is 2010 and many shops are still running SQL Server 2000 and earlier. Porting from SQL 2k to 2005\8 is pretty painless. Imagine porting to some new in-memory scale-out name-value pair paradigm - how long would that take?

pootle flump ur codings are working excelent.

Poots makes a great point.

If you want a great history lesson, read up on the effort needed to convert from IMS (a hierarchical database) to DB2 (the first SQL implementation). The industry was far smaller than it is today, and the conversion process took between years and decades depending on the size of the accumulated body of work and the programmers available to make the changes.

SQL will be unseated someday. That might happen in my lifetime. The conversion of the existing SQL products to whatever unseats it will NOT happen in my lifetime! Even if the product to unseat SQL appears tomorrow, there will be new products created using SQL for at least 3-5 yyears and probably much more.

-PatP

the strengths of cloud databases don't lend itself well to OLTP database systems, where it is a good thing to strongly type most data.

If the user has the option of entering whatever they want in data fields, how do you search for, and GUARANTEE that the data set that's returned includes what Joe the receiving clerk entered into the date field when he was hung over one morning???

In addition, SQL database servers offer a great many features that may not be available on cloud/non-relational databases. I just read a Dr. Dobbs article discussing cloud databases by a proponent. His closing statement was (my bolding.) Like many other computing fields, a specific technology has strengths, and weaknesses. Get to know both the strengths AND weaknesses of competing approaches, then apply the technology to where is it best suited - don't try to 'wedge' a product into an application where it will struggle. THat's like using a monkey wrench to drive nails. Sure, it might work at times... but, you'll end up with a lot of sore fingers and bent nails, too!

Hey - you leave off Joe - he's a blast the night before.

pootle flump ur codings are working excelent.

"NOSQL" is mostly identified with key-value or graph-based stores and other "navigational" types of storage. These are vastly inferior to the relational model for most purposes and aren't themselves likely to replace SQL in the foreseeable future. They may be a catalyst for change but they aren't yet a replacement.

The enterprise DBMS world is certainly overdue for step change - the technology having been largely stagnant over the last 20 years when compared to the major advances in other areas of technology. The biggest revolution on the horizon at the moment is not NOSQL, it is Solid State Storage. Modern DBMS software, hardware, and even database design is still engineered around decades-old assumptions about the importance of sequential storage. Those old certainties will disappear as faster and cheaper solid state storage becomes the norm. This seems very likely to lead to major redesigns of database software and perhaps open the way for new innovations and new challengers to the Oracle/IBM/Microsoft database hegemony.