Re: MySQL versus Postgres

சிவகுமார் மா wrote:
> 1. Almost all webhosting providers have MySQL support, but PostgreSQL
> support is available from only a few who also have MySQL support.
> Hence MySQL is universal and PostgreSQL is present as also available.
>

http://www.postgresql.org/support/professional_hosting lists far more
than "a few".  I think the only real area to complain about here is that
there are definitely multiple sources for free small-scale MySQL
hosting, but none I'm aware of for PostgreSQL.  I'm not sure what anyone
here can do about that though.

> a. Documentation is already available (PostgreSQL User Manual,
> PostgreSQL Technical Documentation). Re-package them and publish as
> books targeting different user levels.
>

Fultus already sells printed copies of the documentation.  They're not
very popular.  Given that the trend everywhere is toward e-books, and
you can get a free PostgreSQL manual in PDF form already, I'm not sure
who exactly would be served by repackaging them in any way.  What's
needed here is completely new content.

> b. Cook Books can be created from the discussions in this mailing list.
>

We've already been doing that on the -performance list successfully; a
good portion of things people used to get individual responses to now
can be directed toward an article from
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Performance_Optimization instead.

The problem is that few discussions happen on these lists for things
like "how do I get used to PostgreSQL after growing up on MySQL?"  And
that material will never be appropriate for the PostgreSQL
documentation.  I would highly encourage people to migrate their own
personal notes on such things to the very under-maintained section at
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Converting_from_other_Databases_to_PostgreSQL#MySQL

> 3. The default configuration settings for PostgreSQL are not optimal
> for performance. Can there be a recommended configuration file in the
> installation (assuming certain amount of RAM and processor type) ?
>

This doesn't work because there are many different types of database
applications, and what's optimal even as a starting configuration for
each type is very different.  Also, hardware changes pretty fast; you'd
be hard pressed to write down useful generic recommendations (or insert
them into the core database code) that are still relevant at all after a
release has been out a few years.

--
Greg Smith  2ndQuadrant US  Baltimore, MD
PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support
greg@2ndQuadrant.com   www.2ndQuadrant.us