At 01:22 AM 1/14/00 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>> Look - in case there's any doubt, I'm not trying to toast Postgres,
>> I'm a fan, interested in getting more involved in the development
>> scenario. I raised this issue because Xun raised some "really big
>> database issues which I as a database theorist have an interest in".
>> My biggest sin if any is to try to paint the horizon, at this point.
>> Philip Greenspun still says that those of us (including employee
>> #3 or so of his company, Ben) who are interested in Postgres are "losers"
>> by definition (Ben no longer works there). Meanwhile, folks like Ben
>
>I thought Phil was a big fan of ours.
He's moderated his opinion considerably over the past several
months. To some extent you might say he's had his opinion
moderated for him. Feel free to extrapolate :)
(not just me, or even primarily me, but folks like Ben Adida who'veworked with Philip at MIT and then Ars Digita are
deeplyinterestedin seeing a successful version of the Ars Digita toolkit based onPostgres, Ben also coordinates
AOLserverreleases for Ars Digita/MIT)
Still, as recently as six months ago Philip flamed some English gent
in public for suggesting an ACS port to Postgres or another free
or cheap RDBMS, and went on the e-mail the guy nasty notes in private.
Or so the gent sez.
I know Philip was surprised and impressed by the great leap forward
embodied by 6.5.
As was I - I'd given up on 6.4.
But Philip is mostly concerned with the clients that feed his very
rapidly growing company, and while he'll release his toolkit sources
still tells folks you really need Oracle. His most recent criticism
of Postgres shrunk to two items (not referential integrity, no outer
joins), one of which has disappeared in current sources.
Apparently he doesn't know how weak large object support is, I won't
tell him, either...
Anyway, this isn't about Philip's opinions so much as the fact that
Postgres has had a very spotty reputation in the past, but is improving
so quickly and predictably that its reputation is also steadily
improving. He serves as an example of someone who's convinced that
Postgres has greatly improved but remains skeptical that it's improved
enough to do serious work with.
- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza@pacifier.com> Nature photos, on-line guides, Pacific Northwest Rare Bird Alert
Serviceand other goodies at http://donb.photo.net.