I had the misfortune of having to attend a .NET forum. It was 
interesting, it seems like Microsoft is gonna may anyone's dog able to 
write web service applications. The catch being that it will only run on 
Windows .NET.

Anyway, on to MySQL. The had a booth there.  I asked their technical guy 
a few questions and he seemed to have a decent understanding. When I 
asked the question, "Why would I choose MySQL over something like 
PostgreSQL?" his response was "There is one company driving MySQL. Also, 
when we do a feature we think it through and deliver it completed. The 
PostgreSQL group tends to deliver things that aren't quite right or 
incomplete." I was taken aback by this. I don't think it is completely 
true, but I wonder what you guys think.

Lastly, I asked are there any technical reasons why I would use MySQL 
over PostgreSQL, and the guy answered "not really."




Wed, 19 Mar 2003 15:50:31 -0500
mlw <pgsql@mohawksoft.com>
MySQL at .NET conference
> Anyway, on to MySQL. The had a booth there.  I asked their technical guy 
> a few questions and he seemed to have a decent understanding. When I 
> asked the question, "Why would I choose MySQL over something like 
> PostgreSQL?" his response was "There is one company driving MySQL. Also, 
> when we do a feature we think it through and deliver it completed. The 
> PostgreSQL group tends to deliver things that aren't quite right or 
> incomplete." I was taken aback by this. I don't think it is completely 
> true, but I wonder what you guys think.

I think it's substantially true :)

Chris


Thu, 20 Mar 2003 10:12:18 +0800
"Christopher Kings-Lynne" <chriskl@familyhealth.com.au>
Re: MySQL at .NET conference
On Wed, 19 Mar 2003, mlw wrote:

> Anyway, on to MySQL. The had a booth there.  I asked their technical guy 
> a few questions and he seemed to have a decent understanding. When I 
> asked the question, "Why would I choose MySQL over something like 
> PostgreSQL?" his response was "There is one company driving MySQL. Also, 
> when we do a feature we think it through and deliver it completed. The 
> PostgreSQL group tends to deliver things that aren't quite right or 
> incomplete." I was taken aback by this. I don't think it is completely 
> true, but I wonder what you guys think.

It's interesting how they paint their development style as superior to 
Postgresql's.  Personally, I prefer the way postgresql does it.  they 
release lots of betas to play with and I can test it myself three sub 
versions before it becomes a standard release and report back bugs during 
development, not afterwards.  

They also hint that Postgresql is released this way all the time, i.e. 
there are tons of untested features in the 7.3.0 release no one's ever 
seen before.  If they were around for the beta testing they saw them over 
and over.  They were tested by more eyes than MySQL beta features often 
are, and they were tested well.

Keep in mind, they're still adding basic features like transactions and 
sub queries that postgresql has had for ages.

Lastly, I'd say having one company drive your database is not necessarily 
a good thing.  If MySQL wants to zig and you want to zag, then tough, 
there's no backup plan.  If I REALLY have to have PITR or something, I can 
have the finance guys cut a check to any of a half dozen postgresql 
hackers and know that it will get done.  If the MySQL team doesn't want it 
you may not be able to get it done, as there aren't a lot of hackers on 
MySQL outside of their core team.

> Lastly, I asked are there any technical reasons why I would use MySQL 
> over PostgreSQL, and the guy answered "not really."

I can even think of a few, buily in replication, built in full text 
search.  OK, that's it, but still, I can think of a couple, and I'm not a 
MySQL expert.


Mon, 24 Mar 2003 11:12:43 -0700 (MST)
"scott.marlowe" <scott.marlowe@ihs.com>
Re: MySQL at .NET conference