Database holy war

[Gorman, John]

Just a thought from the developer side of things.

I am porting our product which runs on Solaris to linux. It is a personal
project, not a company project. We use Informix, so when I started porting
I thought I would see what it would take to use another database.

My first thought was Postgres. After installing it and playing with it
for awhile, I discovered that Postgres does not support the PREPARE
statement. That would have meant not just porting, but serious re-write
of alot of the code -- Postgres was out of the picture.

Next my friend recommended InterBase (IB). Rather than do another install I
decided to do my research up front. The result was that IB does not support
a SERIAL data type, instead you have to call a IB function. The end result
would again have required a re-write -- not my goal. 

So I ended up getting Informix from our DBA's.

My point is don't just look at the DB, look at the impact to your code
as well.

John


-----Original Message-----
From: Trent Shipley [mailto:tshipley@symbio-tech.com]
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 3:20 PM
To: plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
Subject: Database holy war




> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> [mailto:plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us]On Behalf Of Derek
> Neighbors
> Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 2:38 PM
> To: PLUG
> Cc: Adam Whitlatch
> Subject: RE: [azipa] Database Suggestion?
>
>
> > What really worries me is that your Access 97 database must be about to
> > break.  The four major players in the database market are:
> >
> > Oracle,
> > Microsoft SQL Server,
> > IBM DB2,
> > Sybase,
> > and Informix
> >
> > Price will prevent any but the largest or well endowed NPOs
> from using ANY
> > of these real databases.
> >
> > PostgreSQL falls somewhere in-between the big five and Access.
> Also, you
> > can just barely run it on Windows.  However, it is free and works pretty
> > well.
>
> I am not sure how one can say PostgreSQL falls some where between Access
> and the big boys.  MySQL fits that bill, but not PostgreSQL.
>
> At this point probably only DB2 and Oracle are clearly above PostGRES.  I
> do not evaluate MSSQL as a choice as it is the only one that runs on a
> SINGLE platform.  A platform that doesnt scale very well so by default it
> has to be left out of such a discussion IMHO.
>
> Derek
> derek@gnu.org


1) I congratulate you on your impressive e-mail address.

2) PostgreSQL is still not a full-function RDBMS.

2.1) It does NOT provide no-downtime operation.  This is primarily because
the Vacuum function takes a table offline.  Current versions of Oracle, DB2,
and SQL Server all make provision for non-stop operation.   (Of course, you
can emulate Non-Stop operation by using two tables in Postgres or you can
wait a few months until Vacuum can work on-line . . .)

2.2)  PostgreSQL claims that it has unlimited ability to scale.  However,
the maximum size claimed by Postgres.org is a _tiny_ 60 Gbytes.  As far as I
am concerned that means that Postgres scales to LESS than 60 Gbytes, period,
full stop.
	Postgres' ability to operate in clustered, distributed, or
replicated
environments is still in the wish-list stage.

2.3)  Postgres lacks a full suite of idiot friendly GUIs.  Postgres Access
is a poor cousin of what the big commercial databases supply.

2.4) Compared to the commercial offerings, Postgres is sparsely documented.

3) If SQL Server may run on only one platform, but on that platform it runs
very well.  Second, that platform is the most popular in the world, and
Postgres b-a-r-e-l-y runs on it.  Also, the labor costs to run the *nixes
that can host Postgres are MUCH higher than for that other OS.
	More important, when NT4 was Microsoft's premier OS it was very easy
to
argue that *nix, and the Free *nix OSes in particular, were viable
alternatives.  When I advocate using *nix instead of NT-5 people just laugh
at me.  NT-5 and SQL Server 7/8 are HUGE improvements over their
predecessors.  They are probably SO much easier to use, that they make it
CHEAPER to use Microsoft products than to run freeware.

I mean, besides academia, academics, and NPOs who A) have obscenely cheap
labor costs and B) may actually want to hack the base code, who can afford
freeware.

That bears repeating:

Who can afford freeware??!!

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