Re: Advantages of PostgreSQL over MySQL 5.0

On Fri, 2006-03-24 at 13:55, Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 10:32:42AM -0600, Scott Marlowe wrote:
> > > > http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=13301
> > > >
> > >
> > > from the response:
> > >
> > >  > Years ago, to help porting applications from other database brands to
> > >  > MySQL, MySQL was made to accept the syntax even though no real
> > >  > constraints were created.
> >
> > > i hope postgresql will never "help" me this way.
> >
> > No kidding.  What bothers me so much about this failure is that there's
> > not way in the current version to change this behaviour.  Everytime
> > there's a MySQL versus PostgreSQL flamefest on Slashdot or elsewhere, I
> > see the MySQL folks chiming in with "but the -ansi switch fixes all
> > those problems"
> >
> > It doesn't, and there are many other things I've found that the -ansi
> > switch doesn't fix.
>
> Got a list? I'd love to have it as ammo, and I'm sure that Ian at MySQL
> Gotchas would love to have it too.

Actually, it's probably true for more than half the things on the mysql
gotchas page.  I haven't looked them over in a while, as after
discovering 3 or 4 things you just couldn't fix with the -ansi switch I
kinda gave up on MySQL as anything other than a simple text storage
engine.  While I think it's a pretty decent storage system for text
documents with minimum needs for ref integrity, for anything else it's
the most frustrating database in the world, so it's hard to get
motivated.

> > I really really really wish they'd make a version that followed the ANSI
> > standard more closely, then had a "-compatv4" and "-compatv3" switch to
> > make it behave like the older MySQL flavors.
> >
> > This defaulting to running like an old version, with all its issues is
> > one thing that makes MySQL so unnattractive to use.  That and the fact
> > that if you've got a problem, the standard answer nowadays is "buy a
> > support contract".  ugh.
>
> Happen to have any examples of that as well?

Only my most recent personal experience, when I was explaining to the
guy from MySQL how frustrating it was that installing MySQL broke my
build of PHP and meant I had to use the mysqli libs, not the mysql
ones.  The answer from the guy at MySQL was that the standard fix was to
buy the commercial version, which is generally an older, stabler
version.

But I'm not going to pay money to see if MAYBE, just maybe, that version
is better.  They certainly haven't won me over with the GPL / Free
version of the database, so why should I have any confidence of them
doing it for money.

MySQL feels less and less like Free Software every time I find a problem
with it, and more and more like dealing with Oracle's morass of tech
support layers to get an answer or a fix.