DynamoDB, PostgreSQL, and Grout

[gassc]

I've currently got the FishFry data in DynamoDB. With that, the fishfryform web app's GUI forms and ReST API are carrying the burden of schema validation and gate-keeping for the database. While within the code base a thin "database interface layer" keeps the Dynamo-specific code at arms-length from everything else, everything still sort of bends towards accommodating unstructured data. Having the app need to enforce schema sort of cancels out the benefits of using a schema-less database; either I maintain schema enforcement logic in the app or the database does it natively. It's been a fun experiment.

It would be nice to get back to using a normal PostgreSQL database so we can do more fun spatial things with PostGIS, but maintain the schema flexibility inherent in something like DynamoDB. So...

...if there's time early in 2019, I might swap out DynamoDB for a hosted PostgreSQL database and use Grout, which is a relatively new thing from Azavea.

We'll see!