From the perspective of a GIS professional, I would add the PostGIS extension for PostgreSQL. The depth of spatial analysis options in PostGIS combined with the reliability and performance of PostgreSQL make a great combination. Throw in the cost savings compared to running MS SQL Server/Oracle + ESRI ArcGIS Server and I'm not sure why more GIS shops don't make the switch (Fear of FOSS, the command line, or having to assemble your own solution?).
I'm not sure why more GIS shops don't make the switch
As another GIS professional I've found that the answer to this question in roughly 100% of the cases is that they have some important application (either third party or in house) that doesn't trivially talk with PostGIS and they don't see the cost saving once they've factored in all the migration costs. So vendor lock-in basically.
And the documentation is good too! (And that means that it's good, not like most software with "good documentation" where "good" means that it has reasonable feature coverage.)
PostgreSQL tells you "If you are installing a pre-packaged distribution, such as an RPM or Debian package, ignore this chapter and read the packager's instructions instead" whereas MongoDB actually lists specific instructions for each platform (including distro).
It's similar all the way through. They tell you "why" something was done but not necessarily "how" to get something done. And the manual format with chapters simply isn't suited for the web. There is fantastic content there. It just needs someone with a UX hat to structure it in a way to make it easier to use.
I find the documentation very structured, accessible and complete.
The chapter format might not be the most modern way of presenting it, but the actual page-layout is good and i'm coming from google most of the time anyway.
I don't know what you mean by that the "how" isn't there?
Agree with this. I will regularly write queries plugging together all sorts of odd features in odd ways and it'll just run, run fast, and give me the results I want. Totally amazing.
This is actually the first time I've seen POSTGRES referred to as named for being post-Ingres. This wiki page is full of quite interesting tidbits of history on DB research, thanks.
