Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?
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Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?
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Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?
#2IMO the short answer is: no.
Most opensource software that uses MySQL is riddled with MySQLisms.
Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?
#3IMO the short answer is: no. Most opensource software that uses MySQL is riddled with MySQLisms.
Many forks exists to deal with this situation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySQL#Forks
Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?
#4I 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?
Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?
#5I 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 to spend, MySQL was pre-installed and ready for use.
I never thought it was the better choice, but I understood why it dominated. Once things like Wordpress, vBulletin, phpBB and other stuff was written only for MySQL the choice was then made for you.
I've long been a fan of applications that give you a choice of DB, but it's now unrealistic as many applications have designed schemas to cope with the quirks and limitations of MySQL specifically. These would now be harder to migrate than simply changing a database string, and most application devs don't invest in such things when what they have works well enough and is all anyone is asking for.
Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?
#6I 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?
The query browser and admin tools were easier to use. They weren't really better, rather the presentation was simpler. The Postgres tools (pgAdmin) shows a little too much detail right away (namespaces, etc.) and looks a lot more complicated to use which might put off people who just need to get it working and build from there.
Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?
#7I 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 (MyISAM, really) was faster for loading chunks of text and spitting them into Perl and PHP. Back in the 133Mhz days, people cared about that. Given that MyISAM was pretty much flat files in a clown suit, you didn't get much in the way of serious database functionality.
Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?
#8I 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…
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 popular by being better at the things the majority of users care about, even if they're awful at everything else.
[0] Did I really just use that term? I can't think of a better one to describe the issue I'm talking about.
Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?
#9I 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 seem to faintly remember that in the beginning Postgres was Unix only, and MySQL was available for Windows, too.
Re: Can PostgreSQL pickup where MySQL left off?
#10Well, 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. MySQL is like a ditch around the Oracle stronghold, a ditch to keep competitors far away. GPL is a perfect tool for such tricks.
In contrast to GPL which suppresses commercial developments in it's market segment, BSD encourages them.
For the same reason, Apple slowly gets rid of GCC in favour of clang. It is perfectly OK from legal point of view to include BSD-licensed compiler into commercial closed-source IDE, unlike GPL-licensed compiler.