Re: RFC: PostgreSQL and MySQL comparison.

On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Justin Clift wrote:

Hi guys,

I'm willing to put this on techdocs.postgresql.org, as long as I feel
it's been written for the right reasons.

i.e. I'm all for a document(s) which helps people needing a good, solid,
Open Source database needing transactions, ACID features, etc. But, I'm
definitely not for a document which will incite PostgreSQL-vs-MySQL
warfare and not try and get people to choost the appropriate product(s).

Don't worry, it'll incite a riot no matter how accurate it is.

Vince.
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Vince Vielhaber <vev@michvhf.com> writes:

On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Justin Clift wrote:

i.e. I'm all for a document(s) which helps people needing a good, solid,
Open Source database needing transactions, ACID features, etc. But, I'm
definitely not for a document which will incite PostgreSQL-vs-MySQL
warfare and not try and get people to choost the appropriate product(s).

Don't worry, it'll incite a riot no matter how accurate it is.

Yeah. First thing to do is get it on Slashdot....

;)

-Doug
--
Free Dmitry Sklyarov!
http://www.freesklyarov.org/

We will return to our regularly scheduled signature shortly.

I'm willing to put this on techdocs.postgresql.org, as long as I feel
it's been written for the right reasons.

i.e. I'm all for a document(s) which helps people needing a good, solid,
Open Source database needing transactions, ACID features, etc. But, I'm
definitely not for a document which will incite PostgreSQL-vs-MySQL
warfare and not try and get people to choost the appropriate product(s).

Don't worry, it'll incite a riot no matter how accurate it is.

I'm not sure that much of that last MySQL write-up was inaccurate though
it's presentation was clearly meant to promote MySQL and not to compare
MySQL and PostgreSQL.. The MySQL guys want to emphasize MySQL's strong
points and downplay it's weak ones.. That's good marketing any way you look
at it but I don't think that such a document is little more than marketing
propeganda. I didn't see any mention of what was coming up in PostgreSQL 8,
though they sure wanted everyone to know what would be in MySQL 4..... Note
that I would say the same thing about a document written with a PostgreSQL
bias if it was written in the same way that this document was...

-Mitch

Justin Clift wrote:

Hi guys,

I'm willing to put this on techdocs.postgresql.org, as long as I feel
it's been written for the right reasons.

i.e. I'm all for a document(s) which helps people needing a good, solid,
Open Source database needing transactions, ACID features, etc. But, I'm
definitely not for a document which will incite PostgreSQL-vs-MySQL
warfare and not try and get people to choost the appropriate product(s).

:)

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

Make it represent the pure facts, make both sides 'look good', where
there is deficiency, report the roadmap for fixing the deficiency. Note
well the difference between deficiency and differing opinions as to how
something should be done.

-d

--

:>

I may have the information you need and I may choose only HTML. It's up to you.

Alexey Borzov writes:

I suppose PgSQL has to take a more active stance as well. Consider
"M$ vs Linux debates". Of course here both projects are Open Source so
the discussion should not be as heated... But I do think that
the statements in
http://www.mysql.com/doc/M/y/MySQL-PostgreSQL_features.html
should NOT go unanswered.

Okay, I answered them:

http://webmail.postgresql.org/~petere/comparison.html

(The domain should move to www.ca.postgresql.org in the next few days.
This is just a temporary location while the site meisters move things
around.)

I tried to be reasonable and biased at the same time. ;-)

This article does not go into the advantages of PostgreSQL, since that's
already done elsewhere, such as here:

http://www.ca.postgresql.org/features.html

--
Peter Eisentraut peter_e@gmx.net http://funkturm.homeip.net/~peter

On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Okay, I answered them:

http://webmail.postgresql.org/~petere/comparison.html

Perhaps you should add some links to PostgreSQL's full-text searching
solutions? It's hard to evaluate without some reference to what you're
talking about.

-sam

the following link is a good article on the real-world,
multi-user performance of mysql and postgres. tim perdue
ported source forge from mysql to postgre and performed a
series of tests against the source forge code and database.
one chart shows postgres scaling up to 100 concurrent users
and serving pages very nicely while mysql craters at about
20.

enjoy!

rjsjr

http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/tim20001112.php3

On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Alexey Borzov writes:

I suppose PgSQL has to take a more active stance as well. Consider
"M$ vs Linux debates". Of course here both projects are Open Source so
the discussion should not be as heated... But I do think that
the statements in
http://www.mysql.com/doc/M/y/MySQL-PostgreSQL_features.html
should NOT go unanswered.

Okay, I answered them:

http://webmail.postgresql.org/~petere/comparison.html

Hmm... reading it suddenly I found that can't understand something. If
table bigger than 1 GB are split in different files, there is no "one
file per table". In that case, symlinking is not that safe... or is it?

--
Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[@]atentus.com>)

I think the quotes from Jan Wieck may be hard to understand, or even
misleading, to a reader who did not see them in the context of the
discussion in which they were written. They contain plenty of irony
(sarcasm?), which when read literally, means something quite different from
what was intended. Since the points made are valuable, perhaps they could
be restated in the body of the text instead?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sam Tregar" <sam@tregar.com>
To: "Peter Eisentraut" <peter_e@gmx.net>
Cc: <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2001 3:01 PM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] RFC: PostgreSQL and MySQL comparison.

...
... mysql v postgres
...

In a book on marketing warfare (maybe the one
by Ries & Trout) there was a question about who
was the competitor:

You own a hotel on a small desert island across
the street from another hotel. The question is
are they your real threat as a competitor and
should you try to drive them down, maybe out of
business? The real competitor is the other,
next, nearest "island" 300 miles away - and not
the hotel across the street. If either of the
hotels go out, the whole island economy falters
and you may go with it. What you really want
is to compete against the other island. If the
business of the hotel across the street goes up,
then your own business is like to grow also.
The issue in this case is who is the real,
significant competitor.

It reminds me about unix. Let see, is it
Sun or HP that has the better unix. Opps, how
about IBM, or Sony, NEC, FreeBSD, NetBSD,
SCO, or ... and opps I forgot Linux, oh how
could I do that? And it would be better
to have start up run scripts where?, what is
the better x-type windowing system?, ...

But, MSDOS was MSDOS, was MSDOS...
and MS Windows was MS Windows, is MS Windows

So who is the real competitor -
HP v Sun v Ibm v ... all unix and all slightly
different in such miniscule amounts (I'll probably
get flamed for that...)
or
unix v MS Windows...
What would have happened if the unix vendors
laid down their NIH and joined each other?

So who is the real, important competitor?
Is it so much important to "compete"
between mysql and postgres, or is it more
important to compete with the proprietary
databases. They all must laugh themselves
silly at times.

But I tell you that there would be a WHOLE
lot more concern if the HUGE amount of brains
and talent on both these projects all laid
down their editors, compilers, os's, and their
deeply entrenched NIH attitude and join
forces with each other. What would that be
like? Is it possible? So you feel like
competing, then compete against your own
self to ask what you could learn from each
other, then change direction and compete
against your COMMON competitor - the
proprietary databases.

Just some rambling thoughts - and certainly
not to try and tit-for-tat war.

Regards,

.. Otto

On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 21:32:59 +0200 (CEST), Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Okay, I answered them:

http://webmail.postgresql.org/~petere/comparison.html

Ok, sounds good. I hope that will calm down the discussion.

regards

Johann Zuschlag
zuschlag@online.de

Bravo

Good points.

Most *nix systems are finaly working toward POSIX compliance.

Most SQL systems are working toward SQL92 {I think} compliance.

On the other hand just because you are compliant does not mean that your
code is portable. I don't want this point to turn into a thread, it just
isn't important enough.

There are even RDBMS systems that don't use SQL and that does not make
them bad, it just makes them different.

I used to write my databases in C using an algorythm I developed myself
that is simmilar to but before btree existed. My engine kept indexes in
a pointer of pointers type format in memory, that was quick and didn't
require a lot of memory. Those databases ran on an IBM PC-XT with 512 kB
ram and a 10 MB HD and easily handled 64K interlinked records with an
average of 8 probes per query. Oh and by the way that was on dos 3.2{if
my memory serves me correctly} with Borland Turbo C, but I forget wich
memory model I used {It has been 6 years since I did any non *nix
programming}.

Guy Fraser

Otto Hirr wrote:

...
... mysql v postgres
...

In a book on marketing warfare (maybe the one
by Ries & Trout) there was a question about who
was the competitor:

You own a hotel on a small desert island

...snip...

who is the real, significant competitor.

It reminds me about unix. Let see, is it
Sun or HP that has the better unix.

...snip...

unix v MS Windows...
What would have happened if the unix vendors
laid down their NIH and joined each other?

So who is the real, important competitor?
Is it so much important to "compete"
between mysql and postgres, or is it more
important to compete with the proprietary
databases. They all must laugh themselves
silly at times.

But I tell you that there would be a WHOLE
lot more concern if the HUGE amount of brains
and talent on both these projects all laid
down their editors, compilers, os's, and their
deeply entrenched NIH attitude and join
forces with each other. What would that be
like? Is it possible? So you feel like
competing, then compete against your own
self to ask what you could learn from each
other, then change direction and compete
against your COMMON competitor - the
proprietary databases.

Just some rambling thoughts - and certainly
not to try and tit-for-tat war.

Regards,

.. Otto

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On Wed, Aug 29, 2001 at 09:32:59PM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Alexey Borzov writes:
Okay, I answered them:

http://webmail.postgresql.org/~petere/comparison.html

In that document you say:

By the way, PostgreSQL does support multiple storage managers; not as
easily today as in the early days, but that is mostly due to the fact that
no one ever wanted to replace the current one.

Does this mean that in the 7.1 tree one could include the storage manager
for 7.0, thus being able to read both types, or is it more complicated than
that?

--
Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org>
http://svana.org/kleptog/

Greetings, Peter!

At 29.08.2001, 23:32, you wrote:

But I do think that
the statements in
http://www.mysql.com/doc/M/y/MySQL-PostgreSQL_features.html
should NOT go unanswered.

PE> Okay, I answered them:

PE> http://webmail.postgresql.org/~petere/comparison.html

Looks good, but it's not exactly what I've had in mind. You see it
is too often considered that if someone has to justify oneself, he
is automatically guilty. I want to write an article that would
make MySQL's developers justify themselves...
Besides, one has to read the MySQL's article *before* this just to
understand what's this all about...

BTW, can I use parts of your answers in my work?

And, a question to SQL standard gurus: is it necessary for a DBMS
to implement subqueries and views to be considered entry-level
SQL92 compliant.
Besides, is there any document which has all PostgreSQL's
deviations from standard in one place?

PE> I tried to be reasonable and biased at the same time. ;-)

PE> This article does not go into the advantages of PostgreSQL, since that's
PE> already done elsewhere, such as here:

PE> http://www.ca.postgresql.org/features.html

--
Yours, Alexey V. Borzov, Webmaster of RDW.ru

On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Robert J. Sanford, Jr. wrote:

http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/tim20001112.php3

Now *that* was very informative, thank you.

The best benefit to this, is that the optimization engine is supposedly
vastly improved in the 7.2 tree, so that'll just increase the lead. If
they clean up vacuum to actually get indexes, the planner will have a
better chance at picking more optimal execution plans, too.

I'm glad that development has picked up. It seemed like 6.5x would be
around forever.

Thanks for knocking down the walls guys. ^_^

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Martijn van Oosterhout writes:

By the way, PostgreSQL does support multiple storage managers; not as
easily today as in the early days, but that is mostly due to the fact that
no one ever wanted to replace the current one.

Does this mean that in the 7.1 tree one could include the storage manager
for 7.0, thus being able to read both types, or is it more complicated than
that?

The storage manager hasn't changed in principle since 6.5. What has
changed is the system catalog structure and contents. (Recall the
pg_upgrade program that was available for 6.5->7.0 transition. It would
copy the data files right over.)

--
Peter Eisentraut peter_e@gmx.net http://funkturm.homeip.net/~peter