Live data from Hacker News

PostgreSQL vs. MS SQL

pg-versus-ms.com

91–100 of 106 posts

Re: PostgreSQL vs. MS SQL

#91
post #32
post #7

> PostgreSQL: the docs actively encourage you to simply use the TEXT type. This is a high-performance, UTF-8 validated text storage type which has no length limit . The emphasised part is incorrect, Postgres's text storage has a 1GB limit (that stands for CHAR, VARCHAR and TEXT which all use the same underlying mechanism): http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/datatype-character... > In any case, the longest poss…

Let's agree he should have said "no practical length limit". If you are using gigabyte-long text strings in a relational database, you are doing it very wrong.

> Let's agree he should have said "no practical length limit".

I would have agreed if he hadn't explicitly mentioned the 2GB limit of MSSQL's TEXT and NTEXT in the very next paragraph.

Re: PostgreSQL vs. MS SQL

#92

There is so much here, it is so verbose...so religious. There is the appearance of facts, but mostly it is bias by omission. Take for example the CSV complaints..."MS SQL Server can neither import nor export CSV. Most people don't believe me when I tell them this". This is just false, patently and obviously false. BCP and SSIS, both part of SQL Server have excellent support for importing and exporting flat files. I d…

They likely should have said "standards compliant CSV." I've worked a lot with CSV (too much!) and let me tell you Microsoft's tools are simply awful at following the CSV standard. Excel in particular drives me up the will. Plus the automatic inferences in Excel break all kind of things. Have a six digit number? Randomly a date. Have a UPC? Going to corrupt it in numerous ways (leading zero stripping, converting to s…

> let me tell you Microsoft's tools are simply awful at following the CSV standard.

There's no such thing. CSV is a convention that people mostly agree on but there's no written CSV standard and no CSV standards body.

Re: PostgreSQL vs. MS SQL

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most of it is circa 1998 Slashdot-esque content which really isn't constructive and only damages what little faith people have in this industry even further. The article itself is vitriol. Not only that, the site is designed to intentionally hide the author obviously because being accountable for an opinion is probably bad for them in this case.

So your logic is: "This guy has database opinions I don't like, and he has gotten some facts wrong, so he ought to put his real identity and address on the Internet for all to see?" I mean, what? I'll take Slashdot-style open source zealotry over something that smells a little bit like 4chan-style threats of "doxxing," thanks very much. Your comment does not belong on Hacker News.

Signing your opinion with your nick or name has nothing to do with doxing. It's not like we're talking about his address and SSN. But if you don't like the word "vitriol", use "FUD" instead, because that's what it is. There are lots of things about MS SQL one could point out and say: hey, this is broken. But the vast number of statements on that page are empty, misleading or simply untrue.

That being said, I don't think this site is that harmful. People who'd eat this content up won't read it (tl;dr) and people who do read it will most likely have their own opinion anyway. It's not an authoritative source people tend to trust like, say, Wikipedia, so I'm not bothered about it personally.

Re: PostgreSQL vs. MS SQL

#94

I too am biased towards PG. At one of my previous gigs, I had to develop a HTML5 mobile app around a MS SQL database (though eventually we migrated to PostgreSQL). Among the problems we ran into: A) Indexes disappeared without rhyme or reason. (This might have been a "too many cooks in the kitchen" thing, where someone restored from a backup and didn't tell anyone.) B) In the default configuration provided by the php…

it sounds like your issues had nothing to do with MS SQL Server and more to do with system administration nightmares and with php.

Re: PostgreSQL vs. MS SQL

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your logic is: "This guy has database opinions I don't like, and he has gotten some facts wrong, so he ought to put his real identity and address on the Internet for all to see?" I mean, what? I'll take Slashdot-style open source zealotry over something that smells a little bit like 4chan-style threats of "doxxing," thanks very much. Your comment does not belong on Hacker News.

Signing your opinion with your nick or name has nothing to do with doxing. It's not like we're talking about his address and SSN. But if you don't like the word "vitriol", use "FUD" instead, because that's what it is. There are lots of things about MS SQL one could point out and say: hey, this is broken. But the vast number of statements on that page are empty, misleading or simply untrue. That being said, I don't th…

I can definitely see why you'd say this, since the original parent comment was quickly deleted and you presumably didn't see it.

The original (now flagkilled) parent comment by that poster contained some information regarding the author's place of residence. I (and others) felt this was well over the line.

Re: PostgreSQL vs. MS SQL

#97
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They likely should have said "standards compliant CSV." I've worked a lot with CSV (too much!) and let me tell you Microsoft's tools are simply awful at following the CSV standard. Excel in particular drives me up the will. Plus the automatic inferences in Excel break all kind of things. Have a six digit number? Randomly a date. Have a UPC? Going to corrupt it in numerous ways (leading zero stripping, converting to s…

> let me tell you Microsoft's tools are simply awful at following the CSV standard. There's no such thing. CSV is a convention that people mostly agree on but there's no written CSV standard and no CSV standards body.

RFC 4180 is close enough for me.

Re: PostgreSQL vs. MS SQL

#98

As a DBA, that has years of experience with both. I disagree with you. I stopped reading after the very first bullet, and just skimmed through most of the titles. First, you can import/export csv's. Hell all you need to do to export, is right click the view and hit export, then select .csv. Second, you don't want such a simple installation, MSSQL has several options/packages/configurations. If you don't need it you t…

Although I've had experience with both PostgreSQL and MS SQL, well over 90% of my experience is with the former.

When exporting data to CSV where a text field contains the delimiter, PostgreSQL will do the correct thing every time: wrap that field in quotes. MS SQL...will not.

Re: PostgreSQL vs. MS SQL

#99

The author is pretty misinformed about how enterprises work. a) Security is critical. It routinely trumps common sense and evidence. And telling people "not to fall for it" is advice that will get you nowhere. b) Vendor support is critical. And no your local mom+pop consulting shop doesn't count. PostgreSQL could really do with solid, global companies like Microsoft, Datastax, Mongo etc who offer training and proper…

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=postgresql+professional+support

Re: PostgreSQL vs. MS SQL

#100

There is so much here, it is so verbose...so religious. There is the appearance of facts, but mostly it is bias by omission. Take for example the CSV complaints..."MS SQL Server can neither import nor export CSV. Most people don't believe me when I tell them this". This is just false, patently and obviously false. BCP and SSIS, both part of SQL Server have excellent support for importing and exporting flat files. I d…

They likely should have said "standards compliant CSV." I've worked a lot with CSV (too much!) and let me tell you Microsoft's tools are simply awful at following the CSV standard. Excel in particular drives me up the will. Plus the automatic inferences in Excel break all kind of things. Have a six digit number? Randomly a date. Have a UPC? Going to corrupt it in numerous ways (leading zero stripping, converting to s…

I completely agree with you on Excel. It's gotten bad enough that I'm starting to toy with the idea of replacing Excel with a CSV viewer in my workflow (since all that I use Excel for is to view small-ish CSVs, anyway).
Post reply on HN