Hi,
from my point of view (and according to my experiences) I wouldn´t recommend the use of MySQL
between Access and PostgreSQL. It has a somewhat similiar, although subtle different language
compared to PostgreSQL, and if one uses it, he will get used to that and going on to PostgreSQL will
become a little bit more difficult.
I learned to write my first SQL statements with Access about 8 years ago (really easy to use
interface, and you can compare your SQL statements with the graphical scheme by pressing a button),
because we had to do statistics on Excel and DBase data. Then I found the wonders of web
applications, tried MSQL and early MySQL and finally found PostgreSQL to be the better alternative.
Then I changed my job and_had_ to work with MySQL. This went on for 2 years, then I changed my job
again and could promote PostgreSQL as our main inhouse database. But the change from MySQL syntax to
PostgreSQL syntax is really not so easy, because they are very much, but not completely, alike.
Nowadays there are nice GUI tools available for PostgreSQL, like PgAdmin and pgaccess and the like,
so IMHO it is not necessary to learn SQL with Access, and MySQL - well - you wrote my opinion
already. And if one uses for example a Linux distribution, it is not much difference between setting
up shipped MySQL or shipped PostgreSQL.
If you don´t need to fiddle around with MS Office data by clipboard, especially SQL on Excel data,
but want to learn about a _database_, take PostgreSQL and nothing else. Access is not a real
database (aah, by the way: Did they manage to make it work with more than 64k rows?), but more the
SQL speaking part of MS Office, and MySQL is some kind of approach to a database, but not a really
good one.
Regards, Frank.
On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 16:12:04 -0500 Al Cohen <al.cohen@e-greek.please.no.junk.com> sat down, thought
long and then wrote:
> For learning about databases, probably I'd recommend them in this order:
>
> 1. Access
> 2. mySQL
> 3. PostgreSQL
>
> Access has a really good GUI user interface for playing around, but you
> can still use SQL, although the last time I checked it was Microsoft's
> somewhat-different SQL.
>
> MySQL is trivial to set up.
>
> PostgreSQL really requires a little knowledge to be used.
>
> Note that if you were looking for suggestions on which of these to use
> in an actual production system, my recommendations would be reversed.
> As of the last time I used it, Access has a hideous database backend
> with a nifty unfixable random autocorrupt feature. MySQL is not a
> "real" database, although much better than Access. PostgreSQL is
> amazing - full-featured, fast, and sturdy.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Al Cohen
> www.alcohen.com
