Technically, PostgreSQL is a DBMS, not a database. I.e. “PostgreSQL is the worlds’ best DBMS”, but not “best database”. The problem is, if you call the DBMS a database, so what do you call the database (collection of data, tables, etc.)?
PostgreSQL is the worlds’ best database
121–130 of 365 posts
Re: PostgreSQL is the worlds’ best database
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Replication, failover and high availability are complicated matters. I believe there are other SQL databases that may be said to handle this better than PostgreSQL. At the very least, CockroachDB is much simpler to set up and manage. Cannot vouch for its stability and complexity of abnormal emergency recoveries, though - haven't used it long enough, only had simplest outages (that it had handled flawlessly).
>Replication, failover and high availability are complicated matters. I wonder why Postgre hasn't improved in these areas and instead leaving it to third party solution. I mean every year these few points are still listed as something that flavours MySQL.
Why are you saying they have not improved? That is flat out false - postgres provides a lot better tools for this now than 10 years ago. They still leave a lot of the plumbing to third parties, but they are now at least giving those third parties a lot better tools than they used to.
Re: PostgreSQL is the worlds’ best database
#123I manage Oracle and Postgresql instances and I agree with this, except for one small thing: Postgresql doesn't have packages. Otherwise, it is much simpler to manage than Oracle (which really is a system turned inside out). The documentation is really good and straight to the point (Oracle can't help but turn everything into an ad - nvl uses the best null handling technology on the market and such).
While not having packages isn't a huge deal for new projects, it can be a pretty huge stumbling block for dbas who want to migrate from Oracle to Postgres, but need an easy way to port their pl/sql code to pgpl/sql. Most of the syntactic differenes (like pgplqsl code needing to be delimited as a string) can be automated, or handed off to a junior programmer. Not being able to use Oracle's package system would require some major refactoring to how you organize your functions and procedures
Re: PostgreSQL is the worlds’ best database
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
But that also means that: - the code is not reusable outside of a database setting. So not cacheable. - the code is not reusable accross different storage layers. So not portable. - the code may needs updating if the schema change, you can't abstract that - changing the logic means a db migration - testing the code requires a DB - tooling support to check that code si limited to SQL tooling, which is very weak, espec…
It also means you need a per-user database connection which isn't feasible in many applications as the recommended number of concurrent connections is typically quite low.
You can just change the user for every query.
Re: PostgreSQL is the worlds’ best database
#125Technically, PostgreSQL is a DBMS, not a database. I.e. “PostgreSQL is the worlds’ best DBMS”, but not “best database”. The problem is, if you call the DBMS a database, so what do you call the database (collection of data, tables, etc.)?
Is this really a problem?
Re: PostgreSQL is the worlds’ best database
#126Bi-temporal tables support badly wanted.
Re: PostgreSQL is the worlds’ best database
#127Postgres use always reminds me of this presentation: http://boringtechnology.club/
I self-admittedly love esoteric databases and storage engines to a fault. I'll try to shoehorn things like RocksDB into whatever personal project I'm working on.
At work however, the motto I spread to the teams I work on is "use Postgres until it hurts". And for many, many teams - Postgres will never hurt. I'm very happy for its continued existence because its been a solid workhorse on various projects I've worked on over the years.
Re: PostgreSQL is the worlds’ best database
#128I used PostgreSQL as student and during research and had to switch to Microsoft SQL Server as my company uses that since forever. For features I used on both, the average quality of the SQL Server implementation is between middling and pathetic (mostly the latter). I cannot recall a single instance where I thought "that's nice" or anything positive about how SQL Server does something. At best, it has been "this is no…
Interesting how mssql has bad documentation. Judging by my experiences with docs for azure and various windows and dotnet APIs, Microsoft's documentation is usually pretty solid. Not that it's surpising, since proprietary rdbs'es tend to prefer "vendor lock-in" over "making the product pleasant to work with so the customer doesn't jump ship"
Re: PostgreSQL is the worlds’ best database
#129Technically, PostgreSQL is a DBMS, not a database. I.e. “PostgreSQL is the worlds’ best DBMS”, but not “best database”. The problem is, if you call the DBMS a database, so what do you call the database (collection of data, tables, etc.)?
Is this really a problem?
When I knew nothing about databases, and was trying to read stuff on the web about those, it was very confusing trying to understand what the author talks about when he uses the term database, is it about a DBMS (software), or it’s about a database (data). So, yeah, it’s a problem, at least for beginners.
Re: PostgreSQL is the worlds’ best database
#130I'd like to add one more thing about postgesql : the source code is arguably the cleanest code you'll ever see. It's second to none.