CouchDB is a new breed of database for the Internet, geared to meet the needs of today's dynamic web applications. With this concise introduction, you'll learn how CouchDB's simple model for storing, processing, and accessing data makes it ideal for the type of data and rapid response users now demand from your applications--and how easy CouchDB is to set up, deploy, maintain, and scale.

The code-packed examples in this book will help you learn how to work with documents, populate a simple database, replicate data from one database to another, and a host of other tasks.

• Install CouchDB on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, or (if you must) from the source code
• Interact with data through CouchDB's RESTful API, and use standard HTTP operations, such as PUT, GET, POST, and DELETE
• Use Futon--CouchDB's web-based interface-- to manage databases and documents, and to configure replications
• Learn how to create, update, and delete documents in JSON format, and how to create and delete databases
• Work with design documents to get the formatting and indexing your application requires

A professional writer for over 15 years, Martin 'MC' Brown is the author and contributor to over 26 books covering an array of topics, including programming, system management and web technologies. His expertise spans myriad development languages and platforms - Perl, Python, Java, JavaScript, Basic, Pascal, Modula-2, C, C]+, Rebol, Gawk, Shellscript, Windows, Solaris, Linux, BeOS, Microsoft WP, Mac OS and more. The combination has resulted in expertise in web programming, systems management and integration, and XML and DocBook technologies for writing and publishing documentation. A former LAMP Technologies Editor for LinuxWorld magazine and is a regular contributor to ServerWatch.com, LinuxPlanet, ComputerWorld and IBM developerWorks. As a Subject Matter Expert for Microsoft he provided technical input to their Windows Server and certification teams. He draws on a rich and varied background as founder member of a leading UK ISP, systems manager and IT consultant for an advertising agency and Internet solutions group, technical specialist for an intercontinental ISP network, and database designer and programmer - and as a self-confessed compulsive consumer of computing hardware and software. In his pre-writing life he spent more than 10 years designing and managing mixed platform environments. As a result he has developed a rare talent of being able to convey the benefits and intricacies of his subject with equal measures of enthusiasm, professionalism, in-depth knowledge and insight. A past technical writer building both the documentation system and writing content for MySQL and the MySQL groups within Sun and then Oracle. MC is currently the VP of Documentation for Couchbase and is responsible for all published documentation, training programme and content, and the the Couchbase Techzone.