Re: New and investigating - Mailing list pgsql-novice

On Tuesday 28 January 2003 10:14 pm, you wrote:
> there
>
> My name is Alain, i have like 14 years behind me working with Oracle, and
> nothing else basically.
>

It's about time ?

> Recently i came across PostgreSQL and found it to be a very atractive
> thing, in concept at least. I would like to know more about it, but not
> technically yet, rather on the side of the capabilities it has from a
> "managerial" point of view. I was wondering if i could find some pointers
> here. Thanks everybody for they contributions.
>
> (i already saw the oficial PostgreSQL "advocacy" page)
>
> The kind of questions that i ask myself are like:
>
> . Is it really industrial strength? Where can i find articles/white
> papers/etc that document it? (many people in the lists mention MySQL
> and stuff like that, that's another ballgame alltogether)
>

It truely is, in my opinion it should be the platform-independent industry
standard. PostgreSQL www-site is a good starting point for the docs. With
regard to MySQL, it is fairly easy to learn either one, once you know the
basics of the other one.

> . How does it compare to Oracle and the other main players in regards
> of solidity, availability, trustability, dificulty of learning, installing,
> mantaining?
>

I'am not familiar with Oracle, by choice I'am afraid, not too keen on these
'official main proprietary players' like MS-SQL (you mean to say? I have
enough experience with MS-SQL not to play around with it anymore) etc., but
as I see it, there are two standards: unix/linux and the rest of the world.
With two years' experience in the real world, and with dos / win-background,
I would not even consider setting up a serious db-system on an other platform
than linux + pgsql or such like. Learning curve may be steep if you do not
know your way around the basic command-line environment, but it is really
worth the 'trouble'. Right to the core, it is actually and amazingly simple
and powerful. Ok, it gets complex with complex scenarios and if you want it
to ..., but help is readily available, just ask the guys ! One thing you will
have perhaps to do is to learn some perl, C, php, python or tlc/tk etc. in
order to make your backend available to your clients. I'd prefer some GUI via
'www', then you have an interface that is platform-independent, all your
clients need is a connection and a browser. And how fast can you move your
entire db-system to another machine ? With a couple of commands and file
transfers ? Yes.

> . How powerful is its internal language (we're quite spoiled here working
> with Oracle's PL/SQL which is very good...)
>
Hmm, very powerful I'd say, and just by reading this list, you learn a lot.

> . Is there any article or study done of PostgreSQL from an Oracle
> background: ups and downs, surprises, diferences, important
> considerations, etc...
>

Don't know, sorry, but the question has been asked now ?

> . In what cases would it be recomendable and relatively riskless to
> consider using PostgreSQL instead of Oracle, and, much more importantly, in
> which cases NOT.
>

Any and can't think of any. In a broader perspective, if you are willing to
take the responsibility to design and further develop a system that fits your
needs now and tomorrow you'll go PG and open source and if it fails everyone
laughs at your decision and you. You can also spend a small or bigger fortune
on a commercial system that does not really fit your needs or probably
over-fits it by far and you do not have much control over, and if that fails,
it is not your responsibilty, but the big international vendor's and nobody
dares to laugh ... ( but really is laughing at both ? )

> . It seems that documentation might be sparse. How confident can one be of
> obtaining technical knowledge of PostgreSQL without a very long trial and
> fail path? Are there books on it?
>

On-line docs, mailing lists, etc. for free. And good books, Bruce ? Trial and
fail is how one really learns. But again, with the help of others further on
the road you don't have to follow all the wrong paths.

> . In the few mails that i have been checking, i saw a lot of thing with
> which
> i am not familiar, but... PostgreSQL is compliant with ANSI SQL, right?
>

And more.

> . I've read an interview of Tom Lane where it comes out that PostgreSQL
> came out to be faster than the other databases in some test. Anybody got a
> link to
> that article? tests?
>
> . How efficient is PostgreSQL in terms of memory usage, queueing and all
> these elaborated but useful (usually) things that show up inevitably in
> high end products (like Oracle). (that could be rephrased as, "how not so
> basic is PostgreSQL?"
>
> etc...

Tom's territory ? "Hardware is the limit".

>
> I guess you see the picture.
>

Yes, have no fear !

> At present all the development i am in charge of relies heavily on Oracle's
> PL/SQL, but with the new ages coming up of having several tiers, and the
> evergrowing needs for computing resources in front of the shrinking budgets
> of struggling economies, this is something i would reconsider. PostgreSQL
> places itself like a potential alternative to the oficial great actual
> players, but it is really hard to trust anybody's speech right out. The
> truth normally lies in many more details, known to the experienced
> practicioners. I hope to be able to gather some impresions here
>

Shrinking budgets and resources, yes. So why waste money on a huge and clumsy
system that messes-up things all by itself and eats up all resources just to
keep itself running ? Repairing calls for out-of-town consultants, who come
in, do their thing and vanish before you can say do-re-mi in swahili.
Something like 600 USD per hour ... And initial cost ? Tons of money for a
pile of installation cds and nothing else. Maybe a manual and contact numbers
for the consultants.

> Thanks everybody.

This might sound like a bit of propaganda here, but having seen 'the light', I
am quite enthusiastic about it.

And please see:

http://www.mslinux.org

A little humour and rumour ...

Best regards,

aarni

>
> Alain Gougeon
> La Paz, Bolivia.
>
>
>
>
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