Re: doc/src/FAQ/FAQ.html changes

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>> * ?? The text version seems to have a lot of blank lines which
>> I had to strip out to get it to match the output of
>> lynx -dump -nolink FAQ.html. For example, the third line
>> of doc/FAQ has 40 blank lines. Why is this?

> I don't see that here or in CVS.

I got that from using the web-based cvs:

wget http://developer.postgresql.org/cvsweb.cgi/~checkout~/pgsql/doc/FAQ?rev=1.133&content-type=text/plain

[regarding xhtml tags]

> Not sure that is a good idea. I don't want to go out in an
> advanced direction with the FAQ, want to make it is simple to
> render as possible. I auto-uppercased the tags again to match
> the HTML version of our docs. I also found <br /> and <hr />
> which htmllint didn't understand and I have never seen;
> changed to <br> and <hr>.

They are a XHTML artifact: all tags are required to have a
matching closing tag. To maintain compatibility with older
browsers, the start and end tags are allowed to be combined
into one with the <br /> trick. I'm surprised htmllint
complained about that. The only other major difference is that
all tags must be lowercase. (which is very difficult for me:
after so many years, my fingers automatically type tags in
uppercase!). In the long run, XHTML/XML will actually
allow pages to be more widely accessible, but the world isn't
exactly rushing to embrace XML yet. It was last on my list
anyway. :)

> > * 2.1: Changed the ODBC hyperlink from
> > http://www.postgresql.org/devel-corner/docs/programmer/odbc.html> > to:
> > http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/odbc.html>
>
> Not really a good idea. Old one put back.

So this link is now removed entirely?

> It's "indices" when talking about an array or field index, and
> it's "indexes" when concerning the index at the end of a book
> or a database index.

Thanks for that.

[regarding a better "vs. mySQL" page]

I surfed a little, and here are some links I came up with. Be
careful when searching the web for similar pages: many
comparisons use v6 of postgreSQL :(. I don't know mySQL version
number well enough to know if they do the same, but I suspect
not.

First, a quote from someone on slashdot:

"If you want details of high performance testing, then you need
to visit www.tpc.org. Until I see Postgres up there then this
testing is useless to the business world."

I agree - it sure would be nice if postgreSQL could get included
in the tests. (paging RedHat...)

October 10, 2001
http://www.geocities.com/mailsoftware42/db/
I like this one

September 2001:
http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2001/09/jepson/
Pretty new. Fairly good, if a little (IMO) apologetic about
some of mySQL's shortcomings at times:
"Although MySQL can't perform subqueries, its temporary tables
can help you mimic subqueries in SELECT statements..."

July 2000:
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/tim20000705.php3

May 2000:
http://openacs.org/philosophy/why-not-mysql.html
The one currently used, but it's old (and admits it in
bold at the top of the page) and has a huge flame war at
the bottom of the page. Maybe we can as the author to update
it and clean it up a bit?

"mySQL Benchmarks"
http://www.mysql.com/information/benchmarks.html
Lots of colorful graphs, and whining about not getting
vacuum to work reliably.

"Featurewise Comparison of MySQL and PostgreSQL"
http://www.mysql.com/doc/M/y/MySQL-PostgreSQL_features.html
mysql's take on why they are better. Very few are valid.
Matter of fact, they really seem to be reaching on some
of these.

Heh. At the bottom of the page, "Only transactional tables"
is listed as a "drawback" of PostgreSQL!

http://www.epinions.com/content_19552308868
Good user review. There are four others, one of which is
negative.

http://www.devx.com/dbzone/articles/renaker03/renaker03-1.asp
Not sure of the date of this.

And of course, there is the GreatBridge funded study that has
been analyzed to death. That's why something like tpc.org would
be nice.

Greg Sabino Mullane
greg(at)turnstep(dot)com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200201121119

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