Welcome to CouchDB and PHP Web Development Beginner's Guide. In this book, we will learn the ins and outs of building a simple but powerful website using CouchDB and PHP. For you to understand why we do certain things in CouchDB, it's first important for you to understand the history of NoSQL databases and learn CouchDB's place in database history.
In this chapter we will:
Go over a brief history of databases and their place in technology
Talk about how databases evolved into the concept of NoSQL
Define NoSQL databases by understanding different classifications of NoSQL databases, the CAP theorem and its avoidance of the ACID model
Look at the history of CouchDB and its main contributors
Talk about what makes CouchDB special
Let's start by looking at the evolution of databases and how NoSQL arrived on the scene.