That's a fair point.
I used to get the same debate from customers when they wanted M$SqlServer,
and I would always try to steer them towards Oracle (even if the starting
point DB was simple). For me this was a no brainer (having used both
products), but it sometimes took a lot of convincing even when Oracle
provided no OS lock in, reliability, scalability, good 3rd party toolsets,
and loads of consultants willing/able to support it.
I'm not sure a comparison matrix is always helpful, because on paper
products can look comparable, but can be wildly different in real use. We
all drive cars, and they get you from A to B - in a paper feature
comparison they can be made to look fairly identical, but their real life
experience can be completely different.
I guess my point was really to use an enterprise database like Oracle as a
yard stick to judge Postgres against. Although the newer versions of
Oracle are becoming bloatware, so you need to be careful!
Compare MySQL to make a case for using Postgres over MySQL, sure. I
understand why you'd want and need to do that.
It just seems that some people are becoming fixated on the number of
features implemented in either MySQL or Postgres instead of looking at the
sum total of all the parts.
John Sidney-Woollett
Randal L. Schwartz said:
>>>>>> "John" == John Sidney-Woollett <johnsw@wardbrook.com> writes:
>
> John> Why is everyone so concerned about how Postgres is
> John> product-placed compared to MySQL? Do you really care whether
> John> users prefer MySQL or Postgres?
>
> I care, because as a consultant, I'm called in to solve other people's
> problems when they most need help. And I'd rather solve problems
> in PostgreSQL than farking around with MySQL.
>
> I also am in an opportunity to be called in during the early phases of
> project assessment and design. There, I have an opportunity to talk
> about choice of database amongst other things. So, I need to be armed
> with facts about choices, more than just anecdotes.
>
> So this is a useful thread, for those areas of my business. Please
> continue. :)
>
> --
> Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777
> 0095
> <merlyn@stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
> Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
> See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl
> training!
>