No, PostgreSQL does not suck.

November 18, 2000 6:46 PM

No, PostgreSQL does not suck. Some of the people who wander into my weblog get there from a page at OpenACS, the site for the Postgres port of Phil Greenspuns' ArsDigita Community System wherein takes place a "MySQL's Better!" "No, it's not!" discussion. Here's a bit more data.
posted by baylink (4 comments total)

Those stats for MySQL seem unusually understated, in my experience. I never get performance that poor, especially from SELECT statements. Hell, even my more complicated queries aren't that bad.

But it makes me want to give PostgreSQL another chance. Thanks for the link.
posted by waxpancake at 9:04 PM on November 18, 2000

You're quite welcome.

Any chance I can get your Hot feed as, oh, say TSV? or maybe XML? :-) Syndicated cheescake; that's what this country needs...
posted by baylink at 1:04 PM on November 19, 2000

Actually, the company I'm working at right now had me do some research on open-source alternatives because many of our clients don't have the money to buy or support an Oracle database, and from the research I did, PostgreSQL seemed to be the better choice.

MySQL still isn't ready for heavy-duty use, as its use of table-level locks when writing to the db can cause massive queues to build up when concurrent write requests are made to the db.

This is the biggest gripe I have with MySQL, although I think many of its supporters are far, far too zealous about using it.

MySQL has a strong following, but I think some of the people who 'believe' in it need to step back and look at the facts before implementing it in every single system.

posted by PWA_BadBoy at 1:41 PM on November 19, 2000

You bet. For those who didn't link off to the OpenACS thread, do so: you'll find some excellent examples of what he's talking about. Of course, the anti-MySQL partisans are just as vehement.

Seems familiar... I dunno why...
posted by baylink at 8:38 PM on November 19, 2000