Peter Arremann wrote: >On Friday 21 January 2005 21:28, Paul wrote: > > >>On Fri, 2005-01-21 at 15:39 -0600, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote: >> >> >>>I'm beginning to wonder whether PostgresSQL wouldn't be the better >>>solution... >>> >>> >>I've thought it is ... the only reason to prefer MySQL in the past has >>been better read performance. By every other metric I've felt that >>PostgresSQL is a "better" database and have wondered why everybody was >>using MySQL for everything. The only reason I can think of is the >>"network effect" which is one of the reasons Windows is popular >>(everybody knows somebody that knows it). >> >> > ><snip> > > >Anyway, I would be careful with statements like "x is better than y because it >supports feature z" - that's not a "better" its a "more fitting for...". Yes, >Mysql doesn't support some/many features that other database engines have - >but there is a large set of appliations where you'll be hard pressed to find >something that beats mysql. Its simply an issue of selecting the tool that >fits best into your environment. > > I've never used Postgres. The reason I was thinking that it might be better actually didn't have anything to do with technical merit, but on the games that the MySQL folks have started playing with the licensing. It reminds me of the whole XFree86 debacle. Look at what happened to them...now everybody's switching to X.org. That's one of the things I love about open source. If somebody gets too big for their britches (*cough* MySQL = Microsoft *cough*) then there's somebody else who'll step into play and take over for those of us who don't like the fecal matter spewing forth. Ben