Thread: What do you think?
Hello everyone. I've tried to do alot of research on PostgreSQL. And first off, it looks nice. I've looked through all the FAQ's I can find, ditto on the archives, and I've got a couple of question for you. I am really interested in peoples personal opinions. you can email me directly at jarrard@webzone.net or AE-Kamylon@aephirsden.com The more replies, the better we will feel with going this route. 1. In an overall basis how do you like PostgreSQL? 2. I am an ORACLE developer. And I've been looking into PostgreSQL as an alternitive to ORACLE for a company I'm working for. The DBA we have have has been an ORACLE DBA for a while. So the question is, how much of a difference will this be to us? 3. We are also curious as to the load the database can handle? Is it on par with Oracle? 4. I know there are tools for PostgreSQL at ZEOS. But we were curious if there are any (or any other) tools for dba's to maintain and tune the db?
Terry Jarrard wrote: > Hello everyone. > I've tried to do alot of research on PostgreSQL. And first off, it looks nice. > I've looked through all the FAQ's I can find, ditto on the archives, and > I've got a couple of question for you. > > I am really interested in peoples personal opinions. you can email me > directly at jarrard@webzone.net or AE-Kamylon@aephirsden.com > The more replies, the better we will feel with going this route. > > 1. In an overall basis how do you like PostgreSQL? I have been doing a little work with postgreSQL and Tcl/Tk, and I find this a good development environment (using libpgtcl). You will need to do some development on the way you want to make forms. > > > 2. I am an ORACLE developer. And I've been looking into PostgreSQL as an > alternitive to ORACLE for a company I'm working for. The DBA we have have > has been an ORACLE DBA for a while. So the question is, how much of a > difference will this be to us? I've been using Oracle for the last year in a Forms environment on WinNT and in a Cobol environment on HP/UX. You will probably miss a whole lot of administrative commands. There is an interactive shell, but it is nothing like Sql*Plus The last four year I have been working in an administrative/banking environment, so what I REALLY, REALLY find lacking is the support of a FIXED numeric of the kind you have in Oracle, Cobol, PL/SQL : NUMERIC(width, precision). You are probably an American, but I wouldn't recommend using postgreSQL here in Europe, where you need a precision from 0 to 10 digits in financial calculations. Also, there is a precompiler, but only for C, while Oracle supports Ada, C, Cobol, Fortran... What will you have, on the other hand ? A substantially larger budget probably, due to no license fee ;-). There is pgPL/SQL, which is pretty close to PL/SQL for stored procedures and triggers. Applications can be written in Perl, Tcl/Tk, Python, C, C++, and there are ODBC and JDBC drivers. Generally, (apart from the lack of a good NUMERIC datatype), I think they can stand next to each other, and the price can't be beat. Jurgen Defurne defurnj@glo.be
On Thu, May 04, 2000 at 08:49:22AM +0200, Jurgen Defurne wrote: > > > > 2. I am an ORACLE developer. And I've been looking into PostgreSQL as an > > alternitive to ORACLE for a company I'm working for. The DBA we have have > > has been an ORACLE DBA for a while. So the question is, how much of a > > difference will this be to us? > > I've been using Oracle for the last year in a Forms environment > on WinNT and in a Cobol environment on HP/UX. You will probably > miss a whole lot of administrative commands. There is an interactive > shell, but it is nothing like Sql*Plus The last four year I have been > working in an administrative/banking environment, so what I REALLY, > REALLY find lacking is the support of a FIXED numeric of the kind you > have in Oracle, Cobol, PL/SQL ! NUMERIC(width, precision). You are > probably an American, but I wouldn't recommend using postgreSQL here > in Europe, where you need a precision from 0 to 10 digits in financial > calculations. Also, there is a precompiler, but only for C, Good news, Jurgen! NUMERIC has been in there since 6.5.0, (hmm, can't find a release date. Should ask Bruce to put a timeline somewhere) There're a few bug fixes/feature extensions for it in 7.0 (to be released Monday), some things like indices, arrays, log() and casting to numeric, but otherwise, I think it's been a pretty stable basic type since it's release. What version of PostgreSQL are you basing your comments on? You sound fairly positive, even if you're using an older version. It's gotten better! One of the curses of Open Source is how fast it can develop: 6.5 was a huge leap over 6.4, and 7.0 is at least as big a jump past 6.5. Ross -- Ross J. Reedstrom, Ph.D., <reedstrm@rice.edu> NSBRI Research Scientist/Programmer Computer and Information Technology Institute Rice University, 6100 S. Main St., Houston, TX 77005
> Good news, Jurgen! NUMERIC has been in there since 6.5.0, (hmm, can't > find a release date. Should ask Bruce to put a timeline somewhere) The killer is that the dates are in the SGML source, but they don't come over to the output file. -- Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Ross J. Reedstrom wrote: > > Good news, Jurgen! NUMERIC has been in there since 6.5.0, (hmm, can't > find a release date. Should ask Bruce to put a timeline somewhere) > There're a few bug fixes/feature extensions for it in 7.0 (to be released > Monday), some things like indices, arrays, log() and casting to numeric, > but otherwise, I think it's been a pretty stable basic type since it's > release. What version of PostgreSQL are you basing your comments on? You > sound fairly positive, even if you're using an older version. It's gotten > better! One of the curses of Open Source is how fast it can develop: > 6.5 was a huge leap over 6.4, and 7.0 is at least as big a jump past 6.5. > > Ross > -- > Ross J. Reedstrom, Ph.D., <reedstrm@rice.edu> > NSBRI Research Scientist/Programmer > Computer and Information Technology Institute > Rice University, 6100 S. Main St., Houston, TX 77005 I am using probably 6.5.2 on my server, and absolutely 6.5.3 on my laptop for development. From the documentation I know that there are numeric types, but these are all binary integer types, as supplied with C -> 2, 4 and 8 byte types. I do not find any reference to a numeric type which can be defined as having D digits and P precision, like this : NUMERIC(D, P). Example : NUMERIC(8, 4) is a number with this format 9999.9999, etc. Jurgen
Jurgen Defurne wrote:
>
> I am using probably 6.5.2 on my server, and absolutely 6.5.3 on my laptop for
> development. From the documentation I know that there are numeric types,
> but these are all binary integer types, as supplied with C -> 2, 4 and 8 byte
> types.
>
> I do not find any reference to a numeric type which can be defined as having
> D digits and P precision, like this : NUMERIC(D, P).
> Example : NUMERIC(8, 4) is a number with this format 9999.9999, etc.
>
> Jurgen
sd=> select version();
version
-------------------------------------------------------------------
PostgreSQL 6.5.3 on i586-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc
egcs-2.91.66
(1 row)
sd=> create table test (value numeric(40, 4));
CREATE
sd=> insert into test values
('100000000000000000000000000000000000.1234');
INSERT 1415932 1
sd=> select * from test;
value
-----------------------------------------
100000000000000000000000000000000000.1234
(1 row)
The documentation describes this in some detail:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/datatype.htm#AEN946
Hope that helps,
Mike Mascari
On Fri, May 05, 2000 at 07:33:51PM +0200, Jurgen Defurne wrote:
> Ross J. Reedstrom wrote:
>
> >
> > Good news, Jurgen! NUMERIC has been in there since 6.5.0, (hmm, can't
> > find a release date. Should ask Bruce to put a timeline somewhere)
> > There're a few bug fixes/feature extensions for it in 7.0 (to be released
> > Monday), some things like indices, arrays, log() and casting to numeric,
> > but otherwise, I think it's been a pretty stable basic type since it's
> > release. What version of PostgreSQL are you basing your comments on? You
> > sound fairly positive, even if you're using an older version. It's gotten
> > better! One of the curses of Open Source is how fast it can develop:
> > 6.5 was a huge leap over 6.4, and 7.0 is at least as big a jump past 6.5.
> >
> > Ross
> > --
> > Ross J. Reedstrom, Ph.D., <reedstrm@rice.edu>
> > NSBRI Research Scientist/Programmer
> > Computer and Information Technology Institute
> > Rice University, 6100 S. Main St., Houston, TX 77005
>
> I am using probably 6.5.2 on my server, and absolutely 6.5.3 on my laptop for
> development. From the documentation I know that there are numeric types,
> but these are all binary integer types, as supplied with C -> 2, 4 and 8 byte
> types.
>
> I do not find any reference to a numeric type which can be defined as having
> D digits and P precision, like this : NUMERIC(D, P).
> Example : NUMERIC(8, 4) is a number with this format 9999.9999, etc.
>
> Jurgen
>
>
Jurgen - I'm not lying to you, there'd be no point. The second
curse of Open Source software is that documentation always lags
implementation. Just try it! Here's a transcript from a session with
6.5.0:
wallace$ psql
Welcome to the POSTGRESQL interactive sql monitor:
Please read the file COPYRIGHT for copyright terms of POSTGRESQL
[PostgreSQL 6.5.0 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc 2.7.2.3]
type \? for help on slash commands
type \q to quit
type \g or terminate with semicolon to execute query
You are currently connected to the database: reedstrm
reedstrm=>create table test (n numeric(10,2), t text);
CREATE
reedstrm=> \d test
Table = test
+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+-------+
| Field | Type | Length|
+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+-------+
| n | numeric | 10.2 |
| t | text | var |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+-------+
reedstrm=> insert into test values (12345678.90,'some number');
INSERT 1030922 1
reedstrm=> insert into test values (12345678.90234,'some other number');
INSERT 1030923 1
reedstrm=> insert into test values (123456780.90234,'too big a number');
ERROR: overflow on numeric ABS(value) >= 10^8 for field with precision 10 scale 2
reedstrm=> select * from test;
n|t
-----------+-----------------
12345678.90|some number
12345678.90|some other number
(2 rows)
reedstrm=>
Ross
--
Ross J. Reedstrom, Ph.D., <reedstrm@rice.edu>
NSBRI Research Scientist/Programmer
Computer and Information Technology Institute
Rice University, 6100 S. Main St., Houston, TX 77005
At 08:49 AM 5/4/2000 +0200, Jurgen Defurne wrote: >I think they can stand next to each other, and the price can't be beat. Thanks for the reply! Your response was welcome. Can anyone else give me their opinion of PostgreSQL? I need both pluses and minuses that you've had with it. Like I said before, this looks like a great product, but I have to convince others of my opinion. again, if you don't want to post your replies to the list, please email me at jarrard@webzone.net or AE-Kamylon@aephirsden.com again. thanks! terry
Terry Jarrard wrote: > At 08:49 AM 5/4/2000 +0200, Jurgen Defurne wrote: > >I think they can stand next to each other, and the price can't be beat. > > Thanks for the reply! Your response was welcome. > > Can anyone else give me their opinion of PostgreSQL? > I need both pluses and minuses that you've had with it. > > Like I said before, this looks like a great product, but I have to convince > others of my opinion. > > again, if you don't want to post your replies to the list, please email me at > jarrard@webzone.net or AE-Kamylon@aephirsden.com > > again. thanks! > > terry Alright, have you followed our little discussion on the mailing list ? In the documentation, you absolutely can't find any reference to this numeric datatype, but as these people pointed out to me, it DOES exist.. This probably means that one should search through the code or of course ask on the mailing list. If you work on a job with a good internet connection, that is fine. But if you work on a job where people (for security reasons) do not want to give easy access to the Internet, you need damn good manuals. Searching through source code of an application is not part of a production programmers job.
On Sat, 06 May 2000, Jurgen Defurne wrote:
> In the documentation, you absolutely can't find any reference to this
> numeric datatype, but as these people pointed out to me, it DOES
> exist.. This probably means that one should search through the code
> or of course ask on the mailing list. If you work on a job with a
> good internet connection, that is fine. But if you work on a job where
> people (for security reasons) do not want to give easy access to the
> Internet, you need damn good manuals. Searching through source
> code of an application is not part of a production programmers job.
--
Its all documented at www.postgresql.org in the information area. Look for the
Integrated document, which you can also download. Its nicely formatted HTML
documentation.
All of this documentation comes with the source code. You have to remember to
install it:
cd usr/local/src/postgresql-7.0
cd doc
make install
This will put it somewhere like /usr/local/pgsql/doc/{user,postgres,
programmer, tutorial}
Also, remember to add /usr/local/pgsql/man to your $MANPATH.
See man/{man1,manl}.
Robert B. Easter
reaster@comptechnews.com
At Saturday, 5/6/2000 10:33 AM, you wrote: >Its all documented at www.postgresql.org in the information area. Look >for the >Integrated document, which you can also download. Its nicely formatted HTML >documentation. Specifically if you look in the user's guide (chapter 3 Data Types) you will find all of the information you need about the variable precision numeric data type. There is no need to look in the source code. Elijah Roberts Java Consultant eroberts@alexandriasc.com 606-816-1186
> At Saturday, 5/6/2000 10:33 AM, you wrote: > >Its all documented at www.postgresql.org in the information area. Look > >for the > >Integrated document, which you can also download. Its nicely formatted HTML > >documentation. > > Specifically if you look in the user's guide (chapter 3 Data Types) you > will find all of the information you need about the variable precision > numeric data type. There is no need to look in the source code. From psql, \dT shows the types. -- Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026