Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Me And My Database

Moving to -general.

On Fri, Jun 02, 2006 at 10:45:14PM +0200, Leif B. Kristensen wrote:
> Don't know if it's relevant here, but I've recently launched the third
> article in a series on my transition from shrink-wrapped genealogy
> software on Windows to my own custom PostgreSQL/PHP application running
> on Linux. The new article is almost all about PostgreSQL, along with
> some rantings about commercial genealogy software and a description on
> my "structured document" (or WYSIWYG) PHP interface. Along with this,
> I've created a blog about the project.
>
> I wonder if anyone here would want to review the stuff and maybe post
> some comments. It's all at <http://solumslekt.org/forays/>, and the
> latest article is of course the
> <http://solumslekt.org/forays/exodus.php>. The second article in the
> series <http://solumslekt.org/forays/blue.php> was my preliminary
> PostgreSQL data definition. A lot of it is outdated, but it might be
> interesting for someone as well.
>
> Eventually I'll publish the full code, but it's still rather immature.

From the bottom of that page:

SELECT * FROM sources INTO src WHERE source_id = $1;

SELECT * is generally something to avoid. You end up shoving around more
data than needed. Granted, in this case it's only getting shoved down
into plpgsql, but it's still extra work for the server.

Also, the commentary about how MySQL is faster isn't very clear. Are you
using MySQL as some kind of result cache? When you get to running actual
concurrent access on the website, you could well find yourself very
disappointed with the performance of MyISAM and it's table-level
locking. There's probably also some gains to be had on the PostgreSQL
performance.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461