Re: Thoughs after discussions at OSCON - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 12:52:29AM -0400, Rick Morris wrote:

> got going for it). Thus secondly, there is the depressing observation
> that the majority of developers haven't a clue what the relational model
> is really good for. They want to wring every possible bit of speed out
> of a database while piling all sorts of constraints into application
> space. That's pretty much the norm for most open source applications I
> have seen.

At the risk of sending your depression into total free-fall, I'll
note that many proprietary applications, including those developed
for Oracle, suffer this problem as well.  Programmers who understand
a database-backed system are much less common than they should be.
And you're _really_ hosed if the person doing the hiring doesn't
understand relational systems: you end up with a whole raft of
programmers, none of whom has had a Date with the clue stick.  (Sorry
about that, folks.  It was irresistable.)  To the extent that's true,
however, those programmers also have practically no incentive to move
from MySQL, save for licensing.  And, as one of the PHP folks said to
me for the second year in a row, "Why would I move?  MySQL does what
I need, and when I need to go bigger, I use Oracle."  Apparently,
"But Postgres is the one that's free," isn't an answer.  Go know.

> without question (Any X is as good as anyone else's X). Maybe it's a
> good idea to put out some material explaining how much difference there
> can be in two different implementations of such a thing as
> (views/triggers/procedures/constraints), and the pitfalls that can
> happen because of this.

Given the troubles IBM has, with all their advertising and white
paper money, making such arguments against Oracle, I don't think that
will be a rich seam.  I agree that this is one of the things I'm
troubled about in MySQL's case: they now can justly claim that they
have transactions (well, most of the time), that they have a strict
implementation of SQL (well, if you turn it on), that they have
stored procedures (pretty much), that they support subqueries (in
some positions) &c.  For a long time, I considered MySQL an
annoyance, because one was always having to discuss this toy in the
same breath as Postgres.  But while Pg has been busy polishing real
industrial-grade features, MySQL has been _marketing_ themselves as
industrial-grade.  And since the people who read _Network World_, who
are unfortunately also often the people in charge of IT procurement
budgets, don't know the difference (and probably never will) between
"subselects in some cases" and "subselects" (for instance), I think
our problem is about to get harder.

That isn't to say that (for instance) the 8.1 features aren't
welcome, nor even that I don't appreciate what the difference is.
But a year ago, I was bearish on the survival of MySQL through the
MySQL AB funding period.  I'm not any more, and I suppose that's why
I'm made nervous.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
I remember when computers were frustrating because they *did* exactly what
you told them to.  That actually seems sort of quaint now.
        --J.D. Baldwin