Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?

news.cnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 46 posts

Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?

#11

Post by sjs »

Zak wrote: post #8
buro9 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MySQL was simple. You didn't have to deal with schema/tablespaces, or the chance that someone used stored procs, or security (almost everyone just used the equivalent of a root account). MySQL just worked. For the most part, with zero monitoring, it stayed working until the server ran out of disk space or died. MySQL was always available. No matter which hosting company you looked at, no matter how little you wanted…

The second half of your explanation, which boils down to "it's everywhere" makes sense now, but is only true because it was already in demand. That it was faster (for certain applications), easier and more reliable does make sense. I understand, for example why PHP got popular even though there were other options available at the time that I believe were better from a software engineering[0] perspective. Things get p…

For many people, including hosting admins, MySQL was the path of least resistance. MySQL required less maintenance than Postgres back in the day. It's pretty much exactly the same situation as with PHP. The tool created by mere mortals is usable by mere mortals, so they use it. The tool created by scholars is technically superior at core functions but is slightly more difficult or cumbersome to use so is used by fewer mortals.

One thing people seem to forget is that Postgres has not been around longer than MySQL, both were released to the public in 1995. Postgres skipped a few version numbers so maybe that makes it seem older.

Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?

#12

Post by dramaticus3 »

Zak wrote: post #4

I wonder why MySQL became super-popular and Postgres didn't. I remember reading for years about how Postgres had a bunch of stuff (e.g. transactions) that MySQL didn't (until recently) and that anybody who knew anything about databases would choose Postgres, yet people still chose MySQL. What did MySQL have during the last decade that made it better for certain applications than Postgres?

MySQL got the wrong results faster.

Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?

#13

Post by epo »

Zak wrote: post #4

I wonder why MySQL became super-popular and Postgres didn't. I remember reading for years about how Postgres had a bunch of stuff (e.g. transactions) that MySQL didn't (until recently) and that anybody who knew anything about databases would choose Postgres, yet people still chose MySQL. What did MySQL have during the last decade that made it better for certain applications than Postgres?

MySQL is a triumph of branding and fanboy self-delusion.

MySQL made it easier initially by omitting lots of difficult stuff (data integrity, management, transactions) thus making easier to get something working quickly. It also had a reputation for being faster then PostgreSQL, a reputation spread by fanboys (in truth people who were bigging up the only database they had a faint comprehension of).

Then it became ubiquitious. Now, like some nasty rash, we can't get rid of it.

Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?

#14

Post by pablospr »

When you’re choosing a database, you’re making a long-term decision, because changing your mind later is difficult and expensive. You want to get it right the first time

Here's a comparison in a tabluar format http://database-management-systems.findthebest.com/compare/1...

Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?

#16

Post by sandGorgon »

Zak wrote: post #4

I wonder why MySQL became super-popular and Postgres didn't. I remember reading for years about how Postgres had a bunch of stuff (e.g. transactions) that MySQL didn't (until recently) and that anybody who knew anything about databases would choose Postgres, yet people still chose MySQL. What did MySQL have during the last decade that made it better for certain applications than Postgres?

Right now - the biggest problem is Wordpress which has ZERO postgres support. A PG-supported version of Wordpress will go a long, long way in popularizing Postgres.

Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?

#17

Post by igorw »

buro9 wrote: post #5
Zak wrote: post #4

I wonder why MySQL became super-popular and Postgres didn't. I remember reading for years about how Postgres had a bunch of stuff (e.g. transactions) that MySQL didn't (until recently) and that anybody who knew anything about databases would choose Postgres, yet people still chose MySQL. What did MySQL have during the last decade that made it better for certain applications than Postgres?

MySQL was simple. You didn't have to deal with schema/tablespaces, or the chance that someone used stored procs, or security (almost everyone just used the equivalent of a root account). MySQL just worked. For the most part, with zero monitoring, it stayed working until the server ran out of disk space or died. MySQL was always available. No matter which hosting company you looked at, no matter how little you wanted…

Actually, phpBB 2.0.0 which was released in 2002 supported: IBM DB2, MS Access, MS SQL, MySQL3, MySQL4, Oracle... and Postgres 7.

But you are right, many of the other popular projects did not make this effort.

Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?

#18

Post by Udo »

Zak wrote: post #4

I wonder why MySQL became super-popular and Postgres didn't. I remember reading for years about how Postgres had a bunch of stuff (e.g. transactions) that MySQL didn't (until recently) and that anybody who knew anything about databases would choose Postgres, yet people still chose MySQL. What did MySQL have during the last decade that made it better for certain applications than Postgres?

I can say from a web dev's perspective that the ubiquitousness of MySQL is only part of the allure (an important part though). MySQL makes simple stuff very easy to implement, it's a great solution if you just want your database to store your stuff and get out of the way. Sure, like any other DB it requires some expertise if you want performance, but it makes this incredibly simple. It just works and you don't spend a lot of time arguing with the software.

It also has a single feature that I find incredibly cool: it supports automatically generated row IDs. It's been a while since I last tried Oracle and Postgres, but at the time you had to create a second table just for a sequence number and it was extremely awkward to handle.

Could the auto-increment feature in MySQL be better? Sure, for example it would be nice to have an option where the row is identified by a hash value instead of a continuous sequence. But even in its limited form today it beats having to wrestle with the glued-together equivalent as implemented in "real databases".

Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?

#19

Post by Halienja »

pablospr wrote: post #14

When you’re choosing a database, you’re making a long-term decision, because changing your mind later is difficult and expensive. You want to get it right the first time Here's a comparison in a tabluar format http://database-management-systems.findthebest.com/compare/1...

that's a good comparison. We use MySQL and PostGre both in our organization and the deciding factor is mainly cost.

Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?

#20

Post by sigzero »

mkup wrote: post #10

Well, PostgreSQL is licensed under BSD, which makes closed-source, commercial forks possible. That's why it is attractive for large businesses, like Apple. GPL-licensed MySQL serves the opposite purpose: it is impossible to fork it into commercial DB product, grow it as times goes by, and threaten Oracle. It is nearly impossible to create commercial product for this market, because there's a free product there: MySQL…

I actually think the license had very little to do with its popularity. The fact that MySQL was a lot simpler than Pg made it popular.
Post reply on HN