[lug] MySQL vs PostgreSQL

[Bear Giles]

To a very large extent this question is like asking which is better, a
sports car or a pickup truck. It depends on your needs - a sports car isn't
very good at taking home lumber from the hardware store but a pickup truck
isn't very good at  amateur racing. What's your specific need? Do you
want/need to use a specific tool? In that case use what it needs.

If you're developing your own software it's a much deeper engineering
question. Most developers treat databases as glorified filesystems and the
back end is largely irrelevant. More advanced shops may also use stored
procedures and triggers and in some cases even user-defined functions and
types may be added to the database. The PostGIS extension to PostgreSQL is
probably the best known example of that. In those cases you need to pick
the database that gives you what you need.

I can't answer the MySQL vs. PostgreSQL question though. I've gotten into
batshit crazy territory in PostgreSQL (stored procedures written in java,
user-defined functions, user-defined types) but don't know if it's easier
or harder, or even possible, in MySQL. Like I said it depends on what you
need.

Bear

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 8:30 PM, Matt Dew <marcoz at osource.org> wrote:

> If you want some serious information,  contact Kevin Kempter at
> Consistent State.   They do database consulting and are located down
> near the tech center, very heavy on the Postgres, Kevin's specialty is
> data warehousing.   He can give you gory, gory details.  (Disclosure: I
> used to work for him.)  Postgres is used a lot of places, you just don't
> hear about it.
>
> MySQL is good at raw speed.  Postgres is good for more enterprisy things
> like failover, tunability, and getting into the guts to see what's
> really going on under the covers.
>
> kevin at consistentstate.com
>
>
> Hope that's helpful,
> Matt
>
>
>
> On 08/03/2012 06:00 PM, Dan Ferris wrote:
> > MySQL is very loosy goosey with your data by default.
> >
> > Here is a comparison that shows how MySQL behaves vs. Postgres.  I think
> > you can make MySQL much stricter, but you would not want to use the
> > default settings anywhere you cared about data integrity.
> >
> > http://wekeroad.com/2012/07/19/postgresql-rising
> >
> > The downside of Postgres is that it's not easy.  I have been dealing
> > with it for 2 years and I still suck at it. :)
> >
> > Dan
> >
> > On 8/3/2012 4:44 PM, Gordon Golding wrote:
> >> Somebody has a PostgreSQL system.
> >> They want to do an entire new large data warehouse.
> >> I used to work with Postgres, now with MySQL.
> >> It seems I just don't see Postgres mentioned that much any more.
> >> Would it be best to build the new data warehouse on MySQL?
> >> Any comments on one over the other?
> >>
> >> Gordon
> >>
> >>
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