[Gllug] Introductions to Databases

[Grzegorz Jaskiewicz]

On 17 Jul 2009, at 11:06, Bruce Richardson wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 10:56:04AM +0100, Grzegorz wrote:
>
>> Cos most of those usually come from hardware problems.
>> On contrary, if you run out of space mysql will corrupt your data.
>> (unless they fixed that). Etc, etc.
>> Try running mysql database, keep it busy, and keep pulling a plug on
>> that server.
>> Not to mention funny SQL syntax that mysql allows, that can cause
>> problems. ...
>>
>> Not to say, that postgresql is bug free, and wears white coat. But is
>> much better on safety and reliability side IMO.
>
> I have extensive experience of using both in production systems.  Both
> of them suck in their own ways.  The fact that Postgresql has always  
> had
> a more theoretically complete and correct SQL implementation isn't  
> much
> use when you run into some of its practical limitations.  I have seen
> development teams port applications from MySQL to Postgresql and then
> sincerely regret it (and other occasions when they were blissfully  
> happy
> about the move.)  I wouldn't mind so much if the Postgres community  
> (at
> least, a large part of it) didn't have such a superior attitude - they
> can be every bit as dishonest about the shortcomings of Postgres as
> MySQL AB was about the lack of transaction support, back in the day  
> (is
> that hilarious page about why MySQL didn't need to be ACID still up
> somewhere?)

isn't it that mysql is not fully transactional, when you use myisam ?  
Because that's what I heard last time.

This is something else, the backends. Can be a blessing, or curse.
Also, scalability. It is a known issue with mysql, not to scale beyond  
8 cores.

I did number of mysql->postgresql translations. And also number of  
(and probably greater number) postgresql schema/query for last 3 years.
So I would love to hear, why someone was regretting the move away from  
mysql. Seriously. Most folks really don't understand, that such  
migration has to have at least 2 stages. You can't just replace DBE,  
and leave the same queries for instance.
Most often, you can't even leave the schema as it was.
Oh, speaking of which. Is mysql finally removed the useless idea of  
'auto increment' column, and only one per table ? ...


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