NoSQL is no big deal -- and that is a big deal

Things move fast in tech, or so they say. I saw this effect in action at the OSCON conference, just last week.

I attended this conference last year, so I can compare the topics of interest for this year against last year.

Last year, NoSQL was the big thing. People were talking about it. Vendors were hawking their NoSQL databases. Developers were talking (incessantly, at times) about their projects that use NoSQL databases. Presenters gave classes on the concepts and proper use of NoSQL databases.

This year, no one was talking about it. (Well, a few people were, but they were a tiny minority.) It wasn't that people had rejected NoSQL databases. In fact, quite the opposite: people had accepted them as normal technology. NoSQL databases are now considered to be "just another tool in our set".

So in the space of twelve months, NoSQL has gone from "the cool new thing" to "no big deal".

And that, I think, is a big deal.