On Thu, Feb 01, 2007 at 01:16:18PM -0500, Angelo Bertolli wrote: > > (1) MySQL is shown to be faster in a single-user environment than > Postgres, especially with complicated SELECT statements > IIRC, this does not hold for transactional tables. So, we are back to the "if you don't care about your data" argument. > (2) MySQL is a shorter learning curve for new users > What? In what way? Learning to develop against MySQL is no harder or easier than learning to develop against PostgreSQL (besides the fact the people need to be broken of the stupid misconceptions engendered by the pervasveness of MySQL). The two are just different. > If people were just praising and praising MySQL as the best database, > I'd be playing devil's advocate because honestly MySQL isn't a serious > database for serious database jobs. It's a good database for rapid web > development, and for quickies--probably the BEST choice for those I don't about "BEST" but it is at least one of the available choices. > things. Yeah, it sucks that MySQL requires an application layer to any > system (i.e. you, as the programmer, must provide rules, enforce data > integrity, and up until recently even manage your own foreign keys). OK. How in the world does this sort of garbage shorten the user's learning curve. You are contradicting yourself. > But if OpenOffice.org works with MySQL, then I'm sure the OOo software > has taken care of it. > > Let's not go around telling people "you shouldn't use MySQL" or "you > shouldn't use Postgres" just because it might not fit what we're doing > with OUR databases at any given time. > Except that there are vanishingly few, if any, reasons to actually prefer MySQL over anything else. > With that said, I think anyone who is not the most technically inclined > and just getting into things should start out by trying MySQL > because I think overall you can find a lot better information for it > online, and it you don't get bogged down with different schemas. I > think anyone who only knows MySQL really needs to start getting into > Postgres if they ever intend on making a large database. > Ever learn to play a musical instrument in a "newbie friendly" way? Ever take lessons from a master after that? They will spend more time breaking you of your bad habits than teaching you the instrument. The same holds true for people who grow up on MySQL. They simply do not understand how to work with a real database. I see this at work. People "learn" on MySQL and then totally fall apart when they try to work with Oracle. This is because they don't understand that Oracle, being a real database, behaves like a real database and not like that toy MySQL. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com
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