Re: Slashdot discussion

Thomas Good wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Lamar Owen wrote:
> > And, if most people's experience with the RedHat 5.2 RPM's is what
> > they're going on, they need to get with the program -- RH 5.2 shipped
> > PostgreSQL *6.3.2* which is absolutely ancient. Although, at the time,
> > 6.3.2 was better than nothing.

> Hello Lamar,

> 'Better than nothing' - hmm...

> 6.3.2 is certainly 'better than nothing' and, aside from slow vacuums,
> I have no complaints. Of course, I have the old logo taped to the cover
> of my notebook: a printout of the various pg manuals and Bruce's book.
> Being a bit of a blockhead I kind of fancy to exploding bricks. ;-)

At the time of 6.1.1, there really was 'nothing' else that would work
for me, Free Software-wise. MySQL/mSQL wouldn't work, as they weren't
supported by AOLserver, nor did they do transactions (both of those
shortcomings have been/are being fixed). Sybase wasn't yet gratis, nor
was Interbase -- there was _nothing_ else. PostgreSQL was the only game
in town if you wanted a resonably complete RDBMS (although, 6.1.1 wasn't
really up to the standards of being an RDBMS).

At the time of 6.3.2, MySQL/mSQL/Sybase/Interbase were still not
contenders, as they either weren't 'Free' or weren't supported by
AOLserver. PostgreSQL (since Postgres95 1.01) was and is supported,
although as of AOLserver 2.2.1, you had to have at least PostgreSQL
6.2.1.

6.3.2 was a quantum leap forward, as subselects were finally (and
functionally!) implemented. However, the documentation was not really
polished -- certainly not what it is now.

But, my problem was never with PostgreSQL itself -- it was with the
braindead RPM's that had oddball dependencies and oddball behavior. Not
to mention the fact that until 6.3.2 RedHat Linux and PostgreSQL weren't
the closest of friends. The 6.3.1 version was by far the worst version
of the RPMs ever -- but that was as much the fault of RedHat as of
PostgreSQL. The 6.4.2 RPMs that shipped with RedHat 6.0 were also not
thought of very highly....

In fact, I upgraded from 6.3.2 to 6.5.2, skipping 6.4.x altogether.
MVCC made the difference, and the difference was GOOD. 6.5 was the real
standout release, in my book, that made the world of difference -- and I
was glad I had perservered until then.

Now you have OpenACS on AOLserver, which _requires_ PostgreSQL 7.0.x or
above.....

--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11