Re: Understanding PostgreSQL Storage Engines

On 13 October 2010 12:35, Dave Page <dpage(at)pgadmin(dot)org> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 12:29 PM, Ron Mayer
> <rm_pg(at)cheapcomplexdevices(dot)com> wrote:
>> Pavel Stehule wrote:
>>> 2010/10/8 Carlos Mennens <carlos(dot)mennens(at)gmail(dot)com>:
>>>> I know that MySQL uses MyISAM storage engine by default... what
>>>> storage engine does PostgreSQL use by default ...
>>>
>>> PostgreSQL supports and uses just only one storage engine - PostgreSQL.
>>
>> That said, ISTM one of Postgres's bigger strengths commercially seems
>> to be that vendors can reasonably easily plug in different storage engines.
>
> That depends on how you define "reasonably easily". It's not even
> remotely close to the ease with which you can plugin a different
> storage engine in MySQL, and would take a significant amount of
> engineering expertise and effort.

And I don't think other storage engines bring anything but unnecessary
code maintenance overhead and complexity. Plus, reading MySQL's
documentation, you can see notes scattered everywhere about how
features behave differently, or aren't compatible with certain storage
engines. This not only increases the number of gotchas, but also
means supporting all these engines requires an extra level of
knowledge.

I think focus on a single storage engine means it's extremely mature,
predictable and stable... IMHO.

--
Thom Brown
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