Re: PostgreSQL and MySQL in ZDNet article...

On Tue, 20 Aug 2002, Jan Wieck wrote:

> "Nigel J. Andrews" wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 19 Aug 2002, Robert J. Sanford, Jr. wrote:
> >
> > > http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,474127,00.asp
> >
> > [...]
> > I bet noone ever thought having functionality someone else didn't would result
> > in better press for the other.
>
> Interesting, isn't it?
>
> Also that they mention Yahoo Finance makes me wonder if anyone in the
> whole wide (News-) World ever noticed that MySQL doesn't have a precise
> NUMERIC datatype! Their NUMERIC stores and retrieves exact, but as soon
> as you do any computation with it, it converts to double internally and
> becomes fuzzy. Sure, because the application can do it instead, it's not
> a real drawback against MySQL, but why the hell will it then be such a
> major step forward when they finally have it?

They guy they quote in the article was at OSCON and one of the points he
made was that the things they use mysql for are mostly data stores. they
use Oracle for financials and all.

One of the nicest features of mysql for them was that it can sit right on
top of your isam files, of which they have many.