Arnold’s wor(l)ds

MySQL, PHP, Replies

Bye bye MySQL?

20 Apr 2009 Arnold Daniels  

12 Responses to “Bye bye MySQL?”

1. on 20 Apr 2009 at 16:46 1 Nivaldo Arruda

   ooooh boy, here we comes again. =(

   “Based on Oracle’s decision, I might just take a more serious look at PostgreSQL. Changing is usually not so nice, but change often is.”

   Completely agree.

2. on 20 Apr 2009 at 17:53 2 Simon Harris

   The problem you’ll find is that Postgres is absolutely awful.

   Jeremy Zawodny makes a couple of interesting posts on the Oracle/MySQL subject:

   The Real or Official MySQL? Does Not Matter!
   http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/011046.html

   in which he points out that there’s so much going on *around* MySQL, and so many forks, that who owns the “official” (from today that means Oracle) MySQL is fairly irrelevant. And:

   Oracle Buying Sun, Gets MySQL
   http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/011088.html

   in which he mentions that there could be positive outcomes for MySQL, if Oracle want there to be.

3. on 20 Apr 2009 at 17:55 3 FACORAT Fabrice

   PostgreSQL is very a nice RDBMS. Many features, good documentation.

4. on 20 Apr 2009 at 17:59 4 FACORAT Fabrice

   Some links :
   http://www.wikivs.com/wiki/MySQL_vs_PostgreSQL
   http://www.teknico.net/devel/myvspg/index.en.html

5. on 20 Apr 2009 at 18:27 5 asdf

   oracle likes mysql, it won’t go anywhere

6. on 20 Apr 2009 at 19:31 6 Fake51

   “MySQL has remained to be the only serious open-source RDBMS though.”

   Where do you get this from? PostgreSQL is at least as serious as mysql. Having worked with both, I don’t see an advantage on the part of Mysql over Postgres … I really don’t.

   Regards
   Fake

7. on 20 Apr 2009 at 21:22 7 Arnold Daniels

   Fake51: I’m not comparing quality there, but market share. PostgreSQL has only got something like 7% of the market.

8. on 20 Apr 2009 at 22:23 8 Jeff

   I’ve been using PostgreSQL for 6 years instead of MySQL. Personally I find it simpler to use with a better set of tools (pgAdmin) including web enabled tools such as phpPgAdmin. I see this as a good opportunity for Postgres to grab a hold of a bigger piece of the market.

9. on 21 Apr 2009 at 06:49 9 Martin

   Bye bye MySQL…

   welcome PostgreSQL.

   I for one welcome our new (or better old ever existing) SQL overlord

10. on 21 Apr 2009 at 11:20 10 Arjen Lentz

    A few points of illumination…

    Oracle would buy the brand, not the code, which as you know is GPL. Many of the developers are active outside of Sun, for instance in Monty Program Ab and Percona, and with service providers like Open Query, Proven Scaling and 42SQL.
    It’s not even other people picking up where Sun/MySQL might leave off, it’s the same people who are active right now anyway.

    Secondly, PostgreSQL has always been “better” than MySQL, for a fairly wide range of definitions of “better”. Yet today MySQL runs most of Web 2.0, and PostgreSQL does not. In a way this is no different from how it was 10-15 years ago. There’s many things MySQL sucks at, but it gets used most.
    Being blinded by hatred and envy isn’t going to change this.
    Consider that “better” is possibly not a relevant selection criterion? The lack of sufficient growth of PostgreSQL (comparable to others in the field) is not about quality, it’s about approach and understanding of the market in which we operate. Without a change there, PostgreSQL will not gain regardless of what happens to MySQL. Similarly, PostgreSQL could gain a lot more users regardless of other players in the market.

    As you well know, MySQL has tapped a huge crowd of essentially non-consumers when it comes to RDBMS. For most of its userbase it has not taken away from another RDBMS. This should be a lesson.

    My background? I own a company that primarily focuses on MySQL-related services. I personally recommend PostgreSQL for tasks that require for instance advanced geospatial capabilities, since MySQL only has rudimentary planar support and PostGIS is fully featured. I say this without any qualification or malintent. When it comes to GIS, PostgreSQL is probably the best choice out there. It can also be an excellent choice for other deployments.

    Still, that does not make PostgreSQL the easiest to use or manage, scale, and so forth. The available skills out there are limited, and for that reason alone people might choose MySQL over PostgreSQL. That’s just one of the many aspects.

    PostgreSQL’s success in the world is in many ways a simple business and marketing challenge. It requires in-depth understanding of these realms. If I had the time and the funding, it would be a brilliant pleasure to explore the opportunities. Not to prove myself right, but to help enable PostgreSQL’s opportunities that it really does deserve.

    What the PostgreSQL users and supports can do to help their cause, is to read once more over what’s been said, consider the sense of the comments such as the ones on this post, and turn a page. You have the people, you have a good product, the rest is really up to you.
    This is not about MySQL or anything else. This is about you.
    Go for it.

11. on 20 May 2009 at 00:18 11 Aaron

    I read on the MySQL message boards that you have a PHP-based MySQL query parser. Do you have that available anywhere? Thanks.

12. on 20 May 2009 at 11:40 12 Arnold Daniels

    For now, please send me an e-mail.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (hidden) (required)

Website