[ale] MySQL training?

[Christopher Fowler]

I like SQLite for small things.

On Wed, 2004-06-16 at 00:49, Greg wrote:
> I have followed MySQL for awhile now and am somewhat amused at it's
> evolution/revolution/what have you.  MySQL was designed in the beginning to
> support internet development via a *FAST* and simple database that was
> tailored specifically for the gross majority of internet database
> operations - i.e. simple reads from a database and now and then simple
> inserts.  If you wanted other stuff then (at that time) you could program it
> in C or whatever you were using to accomplish your goals or use something
> else.  Transactions, views, whatever was done via programming.  MySQL was
> not for you.  If you had to use something that had to be *FAST* as a primary
> requirement, then you were not likely to be a simple web programmer working
> for a small company but more likely someone who was dealing with very big
> databases, complicated applications, a cast of thousands, and could do it
> easily in the programming layer and not in the database.  It was not meant
> to be a true textbook ACID compliant RDBMS.  It was simple and easy because
> it was designed to be *FAST* first and foremost .... and then came the
> wanna's ... we wanna it be like Oracle/MS SQL/DB2 ... we wanna triggers  ...
> we wanna nice GUI admin screens ... we wanna  this and we wanna that.  So
> they tried to resist this and failed.  At first MySQL said they would only
> add features *if* they wouldn't slow it down (since speed was it's main
> claim to fame and primary purpose), but after a while they stopped holding
> the line on this since you can't have your wanna's and be fast at the same
> time.  Regardless of the fact that these features make it slower (like
> everyone else) the folks that do MySQL started to come under the sway of the
> crowd and started adding them.  Kinda like PHP has caved in to the wanna
> OO/wanna C++/C#/J2EE crowd ... kinda like MS has caved in to every ... well
> you get the idea.  The fact is that about 95% of the time DB work is done
> with 5% of the features of a DB and the old MySQL had/has that 5% already.
> Simple stuff is the main order of the day and all of the "hot" features of a
> commercial RDBMS are simply not needed.  5% of the time someone will need
> triggers, views, stored procedures, etc (in this case use as in "95% of the
> time" we use this stuff) and they are usually in cases where they can afford
> and should be using something with all of the bells and whistles.
> 
> So it really comes down to using the right tool for the job - and hoping
> that there are more projects that will resist the "wanna's", or there will
> be in the future just one type of database - slow, ugly, and expensive.  If
> you don't know what I am talking about, then look at Sun's crappy half-assed
> attempt at an IDE (bigger and slower than MS's Visual Studio - even on a
> dual processor box) or how some Linux distros have now turned into Windows
> wanna-be bloat-ware with every unix server turned on for the world to
> exploit.  Compare that to really tight operations like OpenBSD, Slackware,
> Debian, etc ... that don't give a damm about wanna's but are focused on 1
> thing and doing that 1 thing better than everyone else with no apologies to
> the wanna's of the world.
> 
> Greg
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org]On Behalf Of Greg
> > Sabino Mullane
> > Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 7:48 PM
> > To: ale at ale.org
> > Subject: Re: [ale] MySQL training?
> >
> >
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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> >
> >
> > > And, to be honest, most of the stuff we need doesn't especially need
> > > the likes of triggers, views, etc... and besides, I'm not too much of
> > > a fan of such things since my impression has been that the performance
> > > gains that they bring often come at the expensive of transparency and
> > > ease of deployment/porting/etc.  It may be ignorance on my part but I
> > > have a feeling that a lot of the pro-postgres/anti-mysql sentiment
> > > stems from a lack of understanding of mysql's new features (particularly
> > > in non-myisam databases) and from a general snobbishness about these
> > > things (which is the same snobbishness as tends to scorn PHP,
> > etc.) .. :)
> >
> > What happens when you grow and start to need some of those (I would argue
> > basic) features such as views and triggers? One of the major complaints
> > about MySQL is that they don't follow recognized standards and make a lot
> > of their own proprietary extensions to their products. Disliking that and
> > the lack of features is not snobbery, it's expecting a product calling
> > itself a RDBMS to act like a RDBMS.
> >
> > You should also realize that MySQL is now only "free" for certain defined
> > circumstances. It is run by a single company, which (naturally) wants to
> > make money. As opposed to PostgreSQL, which is still (and should
> > always be)
> > a completely volunteer effort, BSD-licensed and open-source.
> >
> > > At any rate, in my environment I would say that MySQL was a
> > pretty decent
> > > fit: there're more people here who understand it, and there's a greater
> > > potential base of people to come and hack away on it.
> >
> > > I'm not in any way trying to incite any argument here; just noting that
> > > mysql is generally fine for the tasks I'm working on.. and I think it's
> > > generally better from a development standpoint to work with
> > something you
> > > broadly understand rather than learning something else because it's
> > > "better".
> >
> > Kind of like Windows and Linux, huh? <grin>
> >
> > - --
> > Greg Sabino Mullane greg at turnstep.com
> > PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200406151947
> >
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> >
> >
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