Re: postgre vs MySQL

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 03:17:27PM +0530, Gurjeet Singh wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 6:06 PM, rrahul <rahul(dot)rathi(at)cognizant(dot)com> wrote:
> > Thanks to all you wonderful people out their. I don't know if its
> > your love for Postgres or nepothism that makes it look far superior
> > than mysql.
>
> I wouldn't comment on that, but having read so much about MySQL in
> Postgres' lists, I sure have a disliking for MySQL, so much so that I
> haven't bothered even downloading and installing it even once!!!
>
> Does anyone know of threads in MySQL lists/forums where they run a
> propaganda against Postgres or if they downplay us? That would be an
> interesting read!

Indeed that would. This thread is adding a lot, of what I think is
known as "confirmation bias", to my personal preference of PG over
MySQL. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that I can't be too wrong with
my choice, but it also increases my dogmatism.

I'm wondering how interesting it would be to put a smallish survey
together to see if we can tease things apart. The wording of questions
would be fun. Questions like "how important is security to you" seem
somewhat pointless as they're open to *a lot* of interpretation[1] and
almost everyone will pick "very". A couple of multiple-choice questions
I've been able to think of are:

1.a. most people interact with this database directly (i.e. they
write SQL)
b. the developers interact with the database directly, but the
users don't
c. neither developers or users interact with the database directly

2.a. the database should stop invalid data from being entered as
quickly as possible, aborting transactions immediately
b. the database should do it's best to interpret my data in a
valid way, only aborting transactions when necessary

The second seems very biased, but I've not been able to think of
a better way of describing it. I think it could be quite a good
description of what most users actually want though!

I think the hypothesis would be something along the lines of comparing
developer and project requirements with the choice of database
implementation. Comments? I was thinking of sending it to other FOSS
database mailing lists as I'm not sure how to contact commercial DBs'
users. I'm sure that lots of people use both, but the sample will be
biased.

Sam

[1] http://www.eros-os.org/pipermail/cap-talk/2007-December/009460.html