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Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

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Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#191

Post by sofixa »

reshlo wrote: post #186
sofixa wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have trouble updating packages (that aren't install via pip/npm/cargo) on Linux all the time as a newbie. The experience is worse than Windows for some reason If you haven't installed them via your programming language's package manager, you either installed them manually or via the OS package manager. The first one you'd know how to upgrade, and for the second you can ask it what version it is and what version i…

> In Windows you… google and download random .exes? Windows has an official package manager now too.

And there's Microsoft provided and supported software in it?

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#192

Post by homebrewer »

kstrauser wrote: post #172
jgb1984 wrote: post #129

I've used postgresql in most of my previous jobs, but using mariadb in my current one, and I must say it's a joy to administer. The replication and high availability that mariadb offers is rock solid, and much more advanced than what postgresql has to offer. It works out of the box, no plugins or third party shenanigans needed, and there is "one obvious way" to do it. Not a dozen options like in the postgresql ecosys…

To be fair to PostgreSQL, it has multiple replication setups because they have different inherent properties. For instance, it comes with built in streaming and logical replication setups. Which should you use? It’s impossible to say without knowing your own exact use case. By analogy: should a database cluster optimize consistency or availability? Answer: there’s no way its author can guess which is more important t…

MySQL/MariaDB have binary and logical replication too. They also support much more advanced topologies like multi-master out of the box. It's just that what you need for 99% of situations relies on a well trodden path and requires no configuration at all.

I have suspected for a long time that most people who criticize MySQL have never actually worked with it, or have done so a couple of decades ago. It's often the default choice if you don't need some of the PostgreSQL features (like PostGIS) and can work with either one.

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#193

Post by vbezhenar »

api wrote: post #9
paulryanrogers wrote: post #2

Upgrades are hard. There was no replication in the before times. The original block-level replication didn't work among different major versions. Slony was a painful workaround based on triggers that amplified writes. Newer PostgreSQL versions are better. Yet still not quite as robust or easy as MySQL. At a certain scale even MySQL upgrades can be painful. At least when you cannot spare more than a few minutes of dow…

I've always wondered why Postgres is so insanely popular. I mean it has some nice things like very powerful support for a very comprehensive subset of SQL functionality, but most apps don't need all that. It really feels like early 1990s vintage Unix software. It's clunky and arcane and it's hard to feel confident doing anything complex with it.

For me Postgres is 100% predictable and reliable. It's neither clunky nor arcane in my experience. I don't need to think about it, I just SQL it and that's about it. It quietly works in the background. At some scale there might be some issues, but there is always known path to solve things.

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#194

Post by Symbiote »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #2

Upgrades are hard. There was no replication in the before times. The original block-level replication didn't work among different major versions. Slony was a painful workaround based on triggers that amplified writes. Newer PostgreSQL versions are better. Yet still not quite as robust or easy as MySQL. At a certain scale even MySQL upgrades can be painful. At least when you cannot spare more than a few minutes of dow…

I think you're describing versions before 9.2, which was released 12 years ago.

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#195

Post by fanf2 »

sgarland wrote: post #72
tpmoney wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always wondered why Postgres is so insanely popular. In no particular order, my preference for postgres is driven by: * Date / time functions that don't suck * UTF-8 is really UTF-8 * 99% of a backup can be done live with nothing more than rsyncing the data directory and the WAL files * Really comprehensive documentation * LTREE and fuzzy string match extensions * Familiarity from using it for years MySQL/Mari…

MySQL does have ON UPDATE for its DATETIME, though; something that Postgres inexplicably still lacks.

Isn’t ON UPDATE related to foreign keys and independent of the data type? https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/ddl-constraints.html...

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#196

Post by Symbiote »

maxk42 wrote: post #101
wbl wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but you don't need to worry about your data existing. MySQL has been known to silently fail the one job of a DB.

Not in around 15 years. You're thinking of when MyISAM was the default storage engine for MySQL. It has been InnoDB for over a decade. InnoDB is very reliable - I've never had a single data loss incident in all that time, and I've managed some very large (PB-scale) and active databases. Postgres is definitely more difficult to administer.

People are criticising decade-old releases of PostgreSQL, so it seems fair to compare them to similarly aged MySQL releases.

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#197

Post by crabbone »

noirscape wrote: post #156

Because the actual process of upgrading Postgres is terrible. I say this as someone who absolutely loves using it, but the actual process of upgrading Postgres is something that takes significant downtime, is error-prone and you're often better off just dumping all the databases and reimporting them in a new folder. (A good idea in general since it'll vacuum and compact indexes as well if you do it, combining a few m…

> Postgres is software you want to be managed by your distro.

Why?

For production systems I generally try to avoid using anything not built internally. When it comes to PostgreSQL, for example, if you want to submit benchmarks, or you want to report bugs, an important or sometimes a mandatory component is to provide compilation flags. Also, seeing how every kind of storage can act in a different way, tuning of higher-level storage programs seems inevitable. Even though PostgreSQL has a lot of configurations that can be done to the compiled program, some (eg. block size) are compile-time that can only be changed by compiling the program.

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#198

Post by reshlo »

sofixa wrote: post #191
reshlo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Windows you… google and download random .exes? Windows has an official package manager now too.

And there's Microsoft provided and supported software in it?

Yes.

https://github.com/microsoft/winget-pkgs/tree/master/manifes...

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#199

Post by williamdclt »

lelanthran wrote: post #96
sgarland wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re not wrong. If you’ve ever spent meaningful time administering both, you’ll know that Postgres takes far more hands-on work to keep it going. To be clear, I like both. Postgres has a lot more features, and is far more extensible. But there’s no getting around the fact that its MVCC implementation means that at scale, you have to worry about things that simply do not exist for MySQL: vacuuming, txid wraparound,…

My experience of both is that MySQL is easier for developers, PostgreSQL is easier for sysads. That was true in 2012; dunno if it still applies though.

Interestingly, someone else in another comment is arguing the exact opposite!

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#200

Post by yxhuvud »

Dalewyn wrote: post #128
atoav wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: 5. If your IT department is spread thin already and that old version is running fine, the incentive to potentially create more work for yourself is not gigantic.

One of the first laws of the universe that a good engineer learns is: Do not fix what is not broken. And no, being old is not broken.

Being old is not being broken, but being old can make it so that something that is broken cannot be fixed.
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