Re: systems 2007 ...

Hi,

Hans-Juergen Schoenig wrote:
> On Oct 29, 2007, at 1:31 PM, Robert Gravsjö wrote:
>
>> Hans-Juergen Schoenig wrote:
>>> good morning everybody,
>>> my friend zoltan böszörmenyi (this is the guy who posted the
>>> GENERATED BY) and i spent 4 days at systems (one of the largest IT
>>> exhibitions in Europe).
>>> it was quite successful and many people came to ask about PostgreSQL.
>>> i would see three types of people this time:
>>> - "what is the difference between MySQL and PostgreSQL?"
>>> - "we use PostgreSQL; we are so happy; keep doing "
>>> - "we use Oracle, is PostgreSQL as powerful as Oracle?"
>>
>> This is pretty interesting, anyone else had similar experience? Is
>> the main concern comparision with MySQL on one hand and Oracle on
>> the other?
>
>
> i would say so. when somebody shows up mentioning "informix" or so he
> is typically talking about "getting rid of informix". when somebody
> ask for comparison we are facing Oracle and MySQL.
>

I kind of agree with you. Damien and I went to JDLL, a french free
software event in Lyon. The main (only ?) question was for comparisons
between PostgreSQL and MySQL.

>>> to answer the first type of question the best strategies were:
>>> "what would happen if you lost all your data?". in most cases
>>> this made people think about system reliability and so on -
>>> avoiding data loss is a killer argument.
>>> a second argument is MySQL's fetish to implement new storage
>>> engines: "would you trust somebody who comes around every two
>>> years and telling you that the previous way of storing data was no
>>> good under some circumstances? personally i would prefer people
>>> who do their job once but properly" (this is a killer argument
>>> *evil grin*). people were most responsive to those arguments.
>>
>> Did you get any counter argument? Were there any objections?
>
>
> there are a few people argumenting here:
>
> guy: "i have not seen MySQL problems so far".
> me: "do you know anybody who had MySQL problems?"
> in 90% of all cases you will get a "yes" here - this is is how you
> can start then :)
> me: "do you know anybody with PostgreSQL problems?
> guy: typically responds "no".
> me: "well, as you can see - it is all about stability ..."
>

This is kind of dangerous. The guy can answer on the second question that
he doesn't know anybody using PostgreSQL. And you'll be stucked.

The MySQL vs PostgreSQL question annoys me a lot. I don't know MySQL
enough to answer this kind of question.

> those who have never seen problems with MySQL cannot be convinced
> that way. they will need the "more features" argument.

And this is why I prefer to talk about features. I prefer to ask them what
they do with their current database system, what they lack. It's much more
interesting to speak about features than to start an old flamewar with a
possible new user.

Regards.

--
Guillaume.