Re: Postgres v MySQL 5.0 - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

From Jeff Davis
Subject Re: Postgres v MySQL 5.0
Date
Msg-id 1163194391.12372.30.camel@dogma.v10.wvs
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Postgres v MySQL 5.0  (Brad Nicholson <bnichols@ca.afilias.info>)
List pgsql-advocacy
On Fri, 2006-11-10 at 14:39 -0500, Brad Nicholson wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-11-09 at 11:42 +0100, Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote:
> > Leif B. Kristensen wrote:
> >
> > > It's hardly more difficult to start using PostgreSQL than MySQL. The
> > > installation part is mostly the same. Regarding the query language
> > > itself, the differences are small enough that it doesn't matter much
> > > from a learning point of view.
> >
> > The difference is that PostgreSQL does not bundle as much functionality
> > as MySQL does. Also the simple fact that you have plenty of choices in
> > PostgreSQL makes it harder as you grow. This is why developers recommend
> > other developers to use MySQL. Its not only easy to setup, but it will
> > do what most of them expect even if they grow bigger. Like replication
> > is in there by default etc.
>
> Actually, I think the biggest barrier to winning over this crowd is
> performance out of the box.  MySQL just sort of "works" with the default

If I were to choose between "performance out of the box" and "safety out
of the box" I would choose safety every time.

The fact that MySQL chooses performance instead of safety by default is
purely for marketing reasons, and is irresponsible in my opinion. If all
PostgreSQL cared about was attracting those types of new users, they
could ship with fsync=off.

It's hard to outdo the MySQL marketing, because marketing influences
every aspect of their product.

Regards,
    Jeff Davis


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