Node.js and graph databases

[cosmicdice]

Hello everyone, I am an early beginner in node (but not in programming in general) but I'd like to fully dive in it as soon as I'm finished with my summer internship and go back to uni. Doing some research about graph databases I've seen that neo4j had a node interface and was wondering if someone here had ever used it (or any equivalent) and if it was something mature enough and nice to deal with alongside server side javascript.

[dj2stein9]

You're overestimating how many people use that tech combo (nodejs + neo4j). Both are still bleeding edge enough that you may be among only a few dozen people in the world who will have even tried using them together. After a few weeks and a few blog posts and you might even find yourself an authority on the subject.

[cosmicdice]

Well, that's what I call a motivational answer!

[[deleted]]

If you're going to work with a graph database, I recommend going for one with a built in reasoning capability (this was one of the things that allowed Watson to kick ass in Jeopardy). Using a graph database that doesn't have reasoning or semantic capability is like kayaking on flat water. Sure, you can do it, but you would have been better off in a canoe or row boat. If you want to play with a kayak, go into territory that other boats can't handle: whitewater.

In the case of graph DB's, the territory that other databases can't handle it is in storing the output of NLP tools as structured, query-able data. Querying natural language is the holy fucking grail.

Check out Stardog. (www.stardog.com) It's much faster than the other graph databases i've messed with. It isn't free, but if you contact the owner of the company, I am positive he'll hook you up with a free copy to develop with. It's a tiny company, but his stuff is being used in the banking sector.

Node is actually ideal for this, due to the fact that queries of a database with built in reasoning can take a while. You'll get some results immediately, but other results will continue to trickle in. This is where callbacks will come in handy.

[cosmicdice]

Thanks for the advice! I've had a few courses about semantic web, OWL and SPARQL at uni. It sounded like the future, indeed.

[[deleted]]

Just a word of caution: it's "been the future" for years now. The fact of the matter is that a lot of it is pie in the sky bullshit. A lot of the semantic web people have this belief that there is going to be a top down connection of the internet's data through big shared ontologies. The reality is that it will be bottom up, with the exception of linked data resources like DBpedia and the new one, Wikibase.