Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] [Fwd: SGVLLUG Oracle and Informix on Linux]

Bruce Momjian <maillist(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:

| OK, let's discuss this. How does this affect us? [...]
| Certain people will be tempted by a commercial SQL server, while others
| will prefer us because of:
|
| features

Sorry, but I just don't buy this at the moment, for several reasons.

Don't get me wrong. I like PostgreSQL, and think it could *eventually* kick
butt, but (as always, IMHO) it's Not Ready for Prime Time yet, not by a long
shot. Let's look at some of the most problematic issues at the moment:

* No foreign keys.

This is a real kicker for a lot of people. Foreign keys are a big data
integrity issue. Fortunately, you can get around these with triggers,
but:

* No SQL-based triggers.

Triggers have to be written in C, and this is a big showstopper for a
lot of people.

* No OUTER JOIN (left or right).

Yes, you can simulate some of these with various UNION operators, but
it's definitely off the SQL mainstream.

* 32-bit OIDs.

This pretty much takes PostgreSQL out of the running for large database
projects.

* Hard-to-grok source code.

Open source is great, but PostgreSQL source code still has great swaths
of uncommented stretches of code, and that makes it much more difficult
to do things like add esoteric types, or even extend the functionality
of existing types. I recognize that most of this is because it's still
an amalgam of Postgres with the new stuff, but for PostgreSQL source to
be a "selling point" of the software, it has to make the job of adding
types and functionality *much* easier rather than merely possible.

There are a wide array of other issues, too; the simplistic security, view
limitations, administrational problems (eventually, for example, vacuum should
be unnecessary), analysis issues, replication issues, cross-server database
issues, index limitations, the lack of a good front end designer, the lack of a
good report designer, locking issues, and so on.

As I said, I like PostgreSQL. It could eventually be a serious competitor to
Oracle. I'd love to see it do so. But this news of commercial competitors
will certainly eat away at a good portion of PostgreSQL's commercial customers,
and I can't see PostgreSQL reversing that trend unless 6.5 is a major leap
forward.

---Ken McGlothlen
mcglk(at)serv(dot)net