Re: advocacy: drupal and PostgreSQL

In response to Tom Hart <tomhart@coopfed.org>:

> Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > Robert Treat wrote:
> >
> >> There's been a big move in the php community to push people towards
> >> php5 (one of which was EOL of php4), which has started to pay off.
> >> I'd guess that if they wanted to, they could switch to PDO with
> >> Drupal 7 and not hurt themselves too much.
> >
> > When I spoke with Dries about this issue one of the big hold backs
> > wasn't PHP 4 but actually MySQL 3. When Drupal 6, MySQL 3 is not
> > longer supported. So they can actually do some nicer stuff (like
> > foreign keys) etc..
> >
> > I am sure that with PHP5 things will improve as well.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Joshua D. Drake
>
> Let me just sneak in a quick rant here, from somebody who really doesn't
> matter.
>
> We run drupal for our corporate intranet (currently being built) and we
> use postgreSQL as the backend. Some of the modules and things don't work
> perfectly, but drupal supported it and that made me happy enough to work
> with it. Now after reading this garbage, I'm extremely disappointed.
> Completely dropping postgresql capability might not affect them too
> largely in the huge run, because a large amount of their user base is
> using mySQL, but it would send a message to those of us that believe in
> choice. I'm afraid that they're choosing the route of convenience over
> their users, and every time I think about it I want to go looking for
> replacements.

I run my personal site on Drupal+PostgreSQL.  If Drupal drops PG support,
I'll switch the front-end.  I'm not switching the back end.

I'm also planning a small enterprise that I was originally considering
using Drupal for.  I'm now more seriously considering Bricolage.

However, read on ...

> It'd be easier to build drupal to only run on mySQL, but then again it'd
> be easy to build postgreSQL to only run on linux and forget about the
> windows users. I know it's not their duty to make drupal work with
> postgresql, but if they drop it like they're talking about, I'll be
> making a push here and to everyone I know who uses drupal to switch to
> another system, whether they're running postgres or not. If drupal 6
> absolutely doesn't support postgres, then I'm dropping my drupal 5
> install on the spot. This is a cold move drupal, and you should be ashamed.

I made a post on the drupal-devel list to this effect.  I got chewed out
for "flaming" Karoly ... who's obviously some big Drupal code guru.

Frankly, every time this topic comes up, it's initiated by Karoly, and
I've lost patience with the crap, so I unsubscribed.

If I can get my life back in order, I'll re-subscribe some time in Feb,
and hopefully start to do something productive, like contribute testing
and patches.

> Sorry, I'll end the rant here.
>
> BTW, I'm a PHP developer who uses postgreSQL almost exclusively and I'm
> on this list as well as other postgres lists constantly (even if as a
> reader most of the time). If they have this big of an issue, why not ask
> for help?

If you read through the thread, it's just Karoly and a few other minor
players in the Drupal community.  Many people have stepped up and said,
"I _do_ test on PostgreSQL, so what are you complaining about?"

As best I can tell, Karoly writes patches, and when they don't work on
PostgreSQL and therefore don't get committed right away, he starts this
argument up on the Drupal lists yet again.  The guy is a whiner who has
a personal axe to grind and seems unable to accept that Drupal wants to
run on more than just MySQL.  If he loves MySQL so much, he should join
a project that only supports MySQL and leave the Drupal people to their
work.  There's a LOT of effort in the Drupal community to build code
abstractions that will make the system database-agnostic, and Karoly's
constant whining is simply counterproductive.

To a large degree, I think Karoly has blown the situation out of
proportion.  Look at how it affects _this_ list every time he starts
bitching, for example.

--
Bill Moran
http://www.potentialtech.com