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Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

postgresql.org

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Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#121

Post by Reelin »

ethbro wrote: post #62
GordonS wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't argue with that. I suppose regardless of how ridiculous it is, Oracle has very deep pockets and is infamously litigious, and the US legal system doesn't help - given that, I doubt legality really matters...

You can't sue someone for violating ToS... right? At worst, you can refuse to do business with them and revoke any current contracts. You'd have to sue under actual law, which would presumably be libel, which is (in)famously hard to prove in the US [1]. If he had a good faith belief that what he reported was true, that case goes nowhere. Indeed, in lieu of a signed and dated note declaring his knowledge that his benc…

As far as I understand it you are correct about ToS not generally having much in the way of teeth in the US.

But once you download a piece of software you're no longer dealing with the ToS but rather a license granted to you under copyright law. Those do have (arguably too many) teeth in the US.

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#122

Post by to11mtm »

411111111111111 wrote: post #64
jojobas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all countries allow the "sue to bankruptcy" litigation model. I'd truly love to see this unfold in Germany, for example. They typically award costs to the winner too.

While you're likely correct that this wouldn't work in Germany as in a situation like this Oracle would've to pay their layers, the defendants lawyer as well as the courts costs if they repeal too often... There are other avenues for them to ruin his live, which I can imagine them taking. I.e not extending his employers licence or making them pay even more. Oracle loves to make examples and ain't pulling their punche…

I mean it probably would be a protracted battle, but one that a person would likely be able to win in the EU.

The most classic example I can think of was the McLibel case; one of the critical points in that being overturned was the gross disparity in legal resources of each side was considered a violation of the defendant's rights.

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#124

Post by qeternity »

CyberDem0n wrote: post #99
qeternity wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We recently rolled out Patroni on k8s and it definitely does not “just work”. I suppose once you get it up and running, there’s some truth to that, but it’s one of the most hostile pieces of software I’ve come across. This isn’t a complaint, after all, Zalando don’t owe me anything. But the documentation, the project structure, the contributors...it all reveals very clearly that this is really just some internal tool…

Patroni was openly developed from day 0. The repo was created in early July 2015, but before that it was living as the fork of Compose Governor. The Spilo docker container which packages PostgreSQL + Patroni was also always publicly available from the first day. I agree, the Spilo is a bit opinionated due to the way how it is used at Zalando. These two projects have quite a long history and originally weren't even ta…

Hi Cyber - yes I know it has a very active community, and you and I have interacted on github before. But I find this response very similar to github: it’s a template, so build whatever you like with it. That’s not what most people want, and that kind of a reply reinforces my comment. I don’t use React because I want a template for for building a reactive application. I use it because it does all the things I don’t want to have to be concerned with. Like I said, I don’t think any project needs defense. I thank you all for the work you’ve done. But it is not the easiest bit of kit nor the most helpful/inclusive community.

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#125

Post by qeternity »

hjacobs wrote: post #77
qeternity wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We recently rolled out Patroni on k8s and it definitely does not “just work”. I suppose once you get it up and running, there’s some truth to that, but it’s one of the most hostile pieces of software I’ve come across. This isn’t a complaint, after all, Zalando don’t owe me anything. But the documentation, the project structure, the contributors...it all reveals very clearly that this is really just some internal tool…

I'm curious, did you use Patroni directly on Kubernetes or use Zalando's Postgres Operator [1] (based on Patroni)? [1] https://github.com/zalando/postgres-operator

After spending quite a bit of time with the operator early on, along with the KubeDB operator (super easy to use, but definitely not production ready) we settled on some patroni helm charts.

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#126

Post by mayoff »

atombender wrote: post #69
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rollback of DDLs Oracle can't roll back these (create table/drop index etc)? That really surprises me. Pretty certain MSSQL can, because I've used it. Amazed, actually, that oracle can't.

Very few databases support transactional DDL, meaning that you can do something like: BEGIN; DROP TABLE foo; CREATE TABLE bar (t int); ROLLBACK; ...and it will just work as you expect. Oracle doesn't, nor does MSSQL. As far as I know, other than Postgres, only Sybase ASE, Informix, DB2 UDB, and Firebird support transaction DDL.

DDL is transactional in SQLite.

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#127

Post by necovek »

jdm2212 wrote: post #89
devit wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's likely that you ever really need query hints. Even if updating analyses, creating indices, changing the query, etc. fails, you can always either use CTEs or temporary tables, or use a stored procedure that manually iterates over results to implement whatever strategy is desired. It might be more time consuming than having query hints, although this is compensated by the fact that almost always quer…

> It might be more time consuming than having query hints The queries in question can't be allowed to get any slower than they already are. They bottleneck certain critical uses.

I believe the GP post was referring to restructuring your query so you make Postgres hit better indices (eg. when you know the distribution of data but can't easily apply a partial index). A common way to do that in Postgres is to use subselects for a criteria, and the join in the outer query. Coming up with such queries is "more time consuming".

And yes, this approach is fragile even in Postgres (version or data changes might affect the performance, or you might be stuck with a worse query when query planner becomes smarter), so I imagine query hints in Oracle have the same problem.

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#128

Post by NateEag »

shoulderfake wrote: post #102
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very dangerous advice to follow in general.

expand on that

It's probably a reference to "piercing the corporate veil":

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/personal-liability-p...

TL;DR: If a judge thinks your corp was just a protective shell, you can be held personally liable for its debts, and your assets can be seized.

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#129

Post by Someone1234 »

z3t4 wrote: post #95
Someone1234 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but by that metric Oracle is archaic. Just look at Postgres[0] supported column data types and then look at Oracle[1]. Better data types means more tightly defined columns, which means fewer bugs/less defensive programming/reduced maintenance/reduced code complexity. No doubt someone will be along shortly to tell me "you don't NEED it!" and then tell me how to hack constraints into making it act like something…

You should store dates with timezone or you can't make calculations like how old is this post. You could base it off system time, but then the calculation have to take into account summer/winter time.

> You should store dates with timezone or you can't make calculations like how old is this post.

I think you misread the post you responded to.

It is discussing the benefit of Date Vs. DateTime data types. In Postgres, by design, a date has a 1 day resolution (i.e. no concept of hours/minutes, within that date). This is hugely useful for scenarios where you intentionally want and only want a 1 day resolution. It not being timezone adjustable is a feature, not a bug.

Storing a DateTime with 12:00 and then an offset of e.g. 0, is a needlessly complicated work-around when a data type that doesn't even have the concept of hours or timezones exists.

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#130

Post by pstuart »

BossingAround wrote: post #117
pstuart wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You took time to criticize the post for being upvoted despite not being deep enough / giving enough examples. It's likely upvoted because most of us in the industry have no love for Oracle and confirmation of that bias feels good. Turnabout is fair play: Why don't you give some examples of why a startup doing a greenfield project should use Oracle today?

I am not in favor of Oracle. I don't care about Oracle. That said, the original post is meaningless and yet on front page. That is what I'm writing against. If all it takes for HNews to upvote an article is hatred of a company, that's a sad state to be in. Might as well get my free upvote with a simple isoraclestillshit.com website, eh?

It's a combination of hate of Oracle and love of Postgres; there were nuggets that validated those feelings.

Upvoting is both "I agree" and mark that in my voting history for if I ever want to see that page again.

Yes, this instance was not super deep but the fact is that it resonated with enough participants to get there. So the literal answer to your complaint is: it was a collective "because I felt like it".

Your complaint is not without some merit but also borders on "get off my lawn!". I've seen plenty of front page posts that I don't think are worthy of being there but, hey, different strokes for different folks.

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