Re: [SLUG] random questions

From: Chad Perrin (perrin@apotheon.com)
Date: Mon Dec 06 2004 - 06:53:15 EST


Paul M Foster wrote:

>>>...and support, and now clustering. Clustering is now our Pee Wee
>>
>>Herman word
>>
>>>of the day. Anyway, I was reading about Clusgres online, but it looks
>>
>>to be
>>
>>>proprietary closed.
>>>
>>
>>Wow. So, contrasted with the assertions to the contrary made by
>>PostreSQL devotees, each is much better than the other for certain
>>tasks. Thanks for the information.
>
>
> Hmm. I'm not sure "much better" is appropriate. If Bryan's right, MySQL
> is easier on resources, making it marginally more suited to web work.
> Though MySQL used to be the speed demon years ago, PostgreSQL has
> recently matched it in general. And until recently, MySQL did not have
> transaction support and a few other critical SQL features which
> PostgreSQL did.
>
> There are also licensing issues with MySQL. I believe the gist of it is
> that if you're running closed source software against MySQL, you have to
> have a commercial license to use the product. Actually, it's probably
> more like if you're _selling_ closed source software against MySQL....
>
> MySQL got a head start in popularity because of its speed, and probably
> its lesser resource drain. The company that builds and sells it took
> advantage of this to market to a lot of people who didn't care much
> about SQL standards, transactions and such. They apparently were also
> diligent in marketing to potential partners, who endorsed MySQL or
> included MySQL with their products.
>
> PostgreSQL is completely Open Source, with no company backing. It has
> striven to be standards based, and given MySQL as its nearest
> competition, has closed the speed gap while continuing to add features.
>
> In the end, I'm not sure it much matters which you use. I don't like the
> licensing issues, and I prefer the more complete SQL feature set, so I
> go for PostgreSQL. But I don't know that it matters much.
>

That all makes sense, but the matter of clustering can make a
significant difference when making decisions about which to use for a
given task. Contrasted with that, licensing issues, scalability, and
the more-complete SQL implementation in PostreSQL can be quite
non-trivial for certain tasks as well.

--
Chad
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked
Knowledge Systems (NKS).  Views and opinions expressed in messages
posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 20:25:30 EDT