Thread: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?

Re: [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?

From
Robert Treat
Date:
On Fri, 2004-04-23 at 12:07, Alexey Borzov wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Rod Taylor wrote:
> > My present theory is that most users make the decision regarding ease of
> > use before even installing the software.
> >
> > If you look at the MySQL website within 1 or 2 clicks, you know that
> > there is a gui for queries, a gui for administration, drivers or
> > interfaces for many programming langauges. They have GIS, Unicode, full
> > text searching, multi-master replication, ANSI compliance, etc.
> >
> > ...
> >
> > You don't learn anything about the GUIs (any of them) within the first
> > couple of clicks. Since many users (even linux users) associate command
> > lines with difficulty of use, the first impression is that PostgreSQL is
> > difficult to use.
>
> I think that PostgreSQL's "download" page should point to at least
> * Recommended replication solution (erserver?)
> * Recommended full-text search solution (tsearch?)
> * Recommended GUI / web frontend (PGAdmin / phpPgAdmin)
> * Drivers: ODBC, JDBC, whatever
> * PostGIS
> * Banners to put on the website
> * A description of what to find in the contrib dir
>
> If someone makes such a page, I'll promptly add it to the
> "next-generation" site.
>

Do you think you could mock one up with fake projects and links?  It
would make it easier to wrap our heads around how that would work with
translations and mirroring.

Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL


Re: [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?

From
Josh Berkus
Date:
Folks,

> > * Recommended replication solution (erserver?)
> > * Recommended full-text search solution (tsearch?)
> > * Recommended GUI / web frontend (PGAdmin / phpPgAdmin)
> > * Drivers: ODBC, JDBC, whatever
> > * PostGIS
> > * Banners to put on the website
> > * A description of what to find in the contrib dir

I'm really nervous about pointing to "recommended" solutions where we have
several.   I'd rather have links to all mature projects in that category.

Replication is actually several different problems demanding several different
solutions.   So no one replication solution is going to cover all needs,
ever.

For GUIs, we have an embarassment of them, and I would not want to be
responsible for telling anyone their project is "not recommended".  That's an
effective way of making a lot of enemies in the OSS community.   Instead, I
might suggest listing all OSS GUIs in order of popularity -- which still lets
PGAdmin & phpPGAdmin float to the top, but without telling Xpg or PGAccess to
take a flying leap into the void.

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

Re: [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?

From
Alexey Borzov
Date:
Hi!

Robert Treat wrote:
> Do you think you could mock one up with fake projects and links?  It
> would make it easier to wrap our heads around how that would work with
> translations and mirroring.

Sorry, right now I'm working on admin interface for postgresql.org, then I'll be
doing static mirror building stuff.

I meant this page will come instead of mirror selection, when the visitor clicks
on Download. If he decides to download PostgreSQL itself, he will hit the
current mirror selection page.


Re: [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?

From
Alexey Borzov
Date:
Hi!

Josh Berkus wrote:
>>>* Recommended replication solution (erserver?)
>>>* Recommended full-text search solution (tsearch?)
>>>* Recommended GUI / web frontend (PGAdmin / phpPgAdmin)
>>>* Drivers: ODBC, JDBC, whatever
>>>* PostGIS
>>>* Banners to put on the website
>>>* A description of what to find in the contrib dir
>
> I'm really nervous about pointing to "recommended" solutions where we have
> several.   I'd rather have links to all mature projects in that category.

Okay, s/recommended/mature/

> Replication is actually several different problems demanding several different
> solutions.   So no one replication solution is going to cover all needs,
> ever.

Okay, but currently *the* replication solution that's linked from every page of
postgresql.org is pgreplication. Which is either dead or just stinks like one.

> For GUIs, we have an embarassment of them, and I would not want to be
> responsible for telling anyone their project is "not recommended".  That's an
> effective way of making a lot of enemies in the OSS community.   Instead, I
> might suggest listing all OSS GUIs in order of popularity -- which still lets
> PGAdmin & phpPGAdmin float to the top, but without telling Xpg or PGAccess to
> take a flying leap into the void.

Who will define "popularity"?

Of course, it is possible to just create a page for all the GUIs, but it will
require discipline or else it will degenerate to
http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/related.html
or
http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/interfaces.html




Re: [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?

From
Rod Taylor
Date:
Forgive my crappy HTML. But this is along the lines of what I was
thinking.

> Do you think you could mock one up with fake projects and links?  It
> would make it easier to wrap our heads around how that would work with
> translations and mirroring.


Attachment

Re: [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?

From
Robert Treat
Date:
On Friday 23 April 2004 16:05, Alexey Borzov wrote:
> Josh Berkus wrote:
> >
> > I'm really nervous about pointing to "recommended" solutions where we
> > have several.   I'd rather have links to all mature projects in that
> > category.
>
> Okay, s/recommended/mature/
>

good suggestion.

> > Replication is actually several different problems demanding several
> > different solutions.   So no one replication solution is going to cover
> > all needs, ever.
>
> Okay, but currently *the* replication solution that's linked from every
> page of postgresql.org is pgreplication. Which is either dead or just
> stinks like one.
>
> > For GUIs, we have an embarassment of them, and I would not want to be
> > responsible for telling anyone their project is "not recommended".
> > That's an effective way of making a lot of enemies in the OSS community.
> >  Instead, I might suggest listing all OSS GUIs in order of popularity --
> > which still lets PGAdmin & phpPGAdmin float to the top, but without
> > telling Xpg or PGAccess to take a flying leap into the void.
>

josh, did you see... rod taylor i think... post in advocacy about criteria for
such a page. the first 6 seemed pretty good.

> Who will define "popularity"?
>
> Of course, it is possible to just create a page for all the GUIs, but it
> will require discipline or else it will degenerate to
> http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/related.html
> or
> http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/interfaces.html

you mean like http://techdocs.postgresql.org/guides/GUITools ?

Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL