"Rod K" <rod@23net.net> writes:
> Paul Thomas wrote:
>> Much of the populatity of MySQL seems to stem from PHPs out-of-the-box
>> support for it.
> This is incorrect. The embedded mysql client library was not added until
> PHP4.0 RC1. PHP's popularity existed long before this. The real culprit
> causing the popularity of MySQL was it's ubiquity among hosting providers
> and the virtual non-existence of PG in that arena. If PG had been more
> friendly to shared hosting environments, perhaps this situation wouldn't
> have arisen.
You are both engaging in the most blatant form of historical
revisionism. Of course PHP's support for MySQL didn't drive MySQL
adoption --- it was the other way around, PHP adapted to MySQL because
that was what was out there. I think "friendly to shared hosting
environments" is a made-up reason as well. The real reason PG lost
mindshare to MySQL in the early web days is that at the time, PG was
hard to install, somewhat buggy, and poorly documented. (Which was not
surprising considering that none of these mattered much in its original
academic environment.) MySQL didn't do much, maybe, but what it could
do it did pretty well and without install/learning curve hassles. We
had mostly caught up on those criteria by perhaps 7.1 or 7.2, but the
mindshare gap remains.
regards, tom lane
