Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
Bruce wrote: Does anyone know of an open source project that *has* successfully displaced a market of mature, established products WITHOUT a commercial entity providing marketing, support direction? Linux. It doesn't have a single company behind it, but several. Uh, no. Linux HAD a commercial entity providing marketing, support, and direction. Red Hat went a long, long way to making Linux real for businesses. They were (are) a well-funded entity, focused on Linux adoption. Their early success, in turn, validated the business (a) so competitors got funded and (b) so established companies (e.g. IBM) started to pay attention. (This is not meant to give all credit to Red Hat: if it wasn't them, it would have been some other similar group). So, does anyone know of an open source project that *has* successfully displaced a market of mature, established products WITHOUT a commercial entity providing marketing, support direction? If not, where's the Red Hat for Postgres? Good discussion! -andy ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
Bruce wrote:
Now, if you are asking about marketing, yea, we don't have much in that
area right now, and we need it. I think your point was that we need a
single controlling company to provide marketing because if there are
many, there is little incentive to market PostgreSQL because all the
other companies are taking advantage of it. That is mostly true.
Yep, this is one of the key issues.
Right now, there isn't a group of people (with a decent budget) who get up
in the morning and say, what can I do today to make Postgres more widely
adopted? And that's a big problem. And it's not just marketing: who's
working on partnerships? Who making sure all of the ISVs add Postgres to
their list of supported databases?
However, I would argue that Red Hat providing support was more important
than Red Hat marketing, and we do have that with a number of companies
now, and
I think we may have to agree to disagree on this.
SRA is going to be announcing world-wide support soon (not just
Japan), and we have other venture capital guys looking a forming
companies.
This is a good step, but it's not the same as a Postgres-focused effort.
SRA's business (and HP's, and IBM's, and Cap Gemini's, and other companies
which are providing support for open source projects) is not about making
Postgres ubiquitous -- it's about selling services.
If a customer came to {SRA,IBM,etc.} with a large suitcase of cash and said,
will you support Firebird for me?, you'd say yes!
My concern about a single company, as all of us are, is that we kill the
community that created the software, which then burdens the single
company to steer development, leading to disaster.
Understood, and that's the potential catch-22. This is the problem with
capital: no smart investor is going to fund a company to promote and
support an project like Postgres if there's nothing to prevent 5 other
investors and teams from doing the exact same thing. There MAY be a way to
form something that's supportive and respectful of the community, and I
think it's worth trying to figure that out.
Bottom line: the Postgres project is at a stage where the non-technical
factors (marketing, partnerships) are at least as important as the technical
ones. Postgres may lose because of lacking technology (such as win32
support, though coming soon), but will not necessarily win with the best
technology.
-andy
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Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
Joshua wrote: Why would someone fund a new PostgreSQL project when there are several viable commercial entities doing the job right now? Four words: size of marketing budget. As a technology guy, it bugs me to acknowledge that. But having lived through this a few times, it is the way it works. -andy ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
Andrew Payne wrote: My concern about a single company, as all of us are, is that we kill the community that created the software, which then burdens the single company to steer development, leading to disaster. Understood, and that's the potential catch-22. This is the problem with capital: no smart investor is going to fund a company to promote and support an project like Postgres if there's nothing to prevent 5 other investors and teams from doing the exact same thing. There MAY be a way to form something that's supportive and respectful of the community, and I think it's worth trying to figure that out. Bottom line: the Postgres project is at a stage where the non-technical factors (marketing, partnerships) are at least as important as the technical ones. Postgres may lose because of lacking technology (such as win32 support, though coming soon), but will not necessarily win with the best technology. Remember, we all came to PostgreSQL because of the community development, so we can't expect us to get excited about something that risks that just to win, as you say. If we had gone in this direction with Great Bridge, we would have seriously injured PostgreSQL and it might not be what it is today. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send unregister YourEmailAddressHere to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
Bruce wrote: Remember, we all came to PostgreSQL because of the community development, so we can't expect us to get excited about something that risks that just to win, as you say. If we had gone in this direction with Great Bridge, we would have seriously injured PostgreSQL and it might not be what it is today. The direction I think I'm suggesting is actually not all that different from Great Bridge. And to your point, Great Bridge failed yet Postgres still thrived. The difference is that you could now correct for Great Bridge's problems, which include but are not limited to: timing (4 years has changed a lot for commercial acceptance of open source), funding ($25m was too much), and strategy (this is not an quick attempt to copy Red Hat). I think such a project, with the right parameters, is very fundable. If anyone wants to talk about that, you should drop me an email off-list; we're probably stepping out of topic for the hacker and advocacy lists. -andy ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
The difference is that you could now correct for Great Bridge's problems, which include but are not limited to: timing (4 years has changed a lot for commercial acceptance of open source), funding ($25m was too much), and strategy (this is not an quick attempt to copy Red Hat). I think such a project, with the right parameters, is very fundable. If anyone wants to talk about that, you should drop me an email off-list; we're probably stepping out of topic for the hacker and advocacy lists. Why would someone fund a new PostgreSQL project when there are several viable commercial entities doing the job right now? J -andy ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
Andrew Payne wrote: Bruce wrote: Does anyone know of an open source project that *has* successfully displaced a market of mature, established products WITHOUT a commercial entity providing marketing, support direction? Linux. It doesn't have a single company behind it, but several. Uh, no. Linux HAD a commercial entity providing marketing, support, and direction. Red Hat went a long, long way to making Linux real for businesses. They were (are) a well-funded entity, focused on Linux adoption. Their early success, in turn, validated the business (a) so competitors got funded and (b) so established companies (e.g. IBM) started to pay attention. (This is not meant to give all credit to Red Hat: if it wasn't them, it would have been some other similar group). So, does anyone know of an open source project that *has* successfully displaced a market of mature, established products WITHOUT a commercial entity providing marketing, support direction? If not, where's the Red Hat for Postgres? My point was that once a single company showed it as profitable, other companies came alone and no one company controls Linux development. We have that now with SRA, Red Hat, Fujitsu, and many smaller companies funding development of PostgreSQL. (In fact, there were several Linux companies before Red Hat.) Now, if you are asking about marketing, yea, we don't have much in that area right now, and we need it. I think your point was that we need a single controlling company to provide marketing because if there are many, there is little incentive to market PostgreSQL because all the other companies are taking advantage of it. That is mostly true. However, I would argue that Red Hat providing support was more important than Red Hat marketing, and we do have that with a number of companies now, and SRA is going to be announcing world-wide support soon (not just Japan), and we have other venture capital guys looking a forming companies. My concern about a single company, as all of us are, is that we kill the community that created the software, which then burdens the single company to steer development, leading to disaster. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send unregister YourEmailAddressHere to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
On Tue, 27 Apr 2004, Andrew Payne wrote: Scott Marlowe wrote: While Apache is and has been wildly popular for bulk hosing and domain parking, for serious commercial use, Netscape's enterprise server, now Sun One, has long been a leader in commercial web sites. Netscrape/SunONE may have been a leader in some sub-market, but this misses the point. Not A submarket, THE submarket, enterprise class application server, i.e. web commerce and such. Just because apache hosts hundreds of thousands of personal web sites with all static content does not make it a market leader. When it came to commercial usage, apache still had to fight its way to the top. Apache + NCSA never had less than 50% market share, overall. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html Again, if 98% of those sites are personal web sites with static content, (they certainly were until a few years ago) and you remove those from the counting, then you find out that in enterprise class web servers, apache had sound competition it is only now starting to consume. Postgres is in a completely different situation: 95+?% of the world's databases don't run on Postgres, and it's been this way for a long time. and some large percentage of the worlds app servers were running on something other than apache for quite some time too. If postgresql was ubiquitous as the database of choice for simple access type applications, it would still have to earn its stripes in the enterprise one at a time. My point: Apache was successful in a situation that may not apply here. I agree that the situations aren't the exact same, but they're more similar than most people realize. Apache was never a market leader in the enterprise realm until fairly late in the 1.3.x series releases. Does anyone know of an open source project that *has* successfully displaced a market of mature, established products WITHOUT a commercial entity providing marketing, support direction? gcc? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
Does anyone know of an open source project that *has* successfully displaced a market of mature, established products WITHOUT a commercial entity providing marketing, support direction? gcc? Nope most big houses will use Intel/Borland/Vc++ or whatever comes with Solaris. In fact, I can not think of a single project that has displaced a commercial one, without market force behind it. Linux won't do it without RedHat/Novell. I would even dare say that Novell will be that driving force, not RedHat. Even Apache has an entity... It actually became much more popular once that entity came to existence (even though it was a 501). Another look at Linux shows that it's popularity amongst the washed masses didn't really soar until Big Blue (IBM) starting pushing it. PHP might be an interesting thought, but ASP is used more widely as is Java for commercial stuff. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
On Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 21:31:33 -0400, Andrew Payne [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At some point (probably there now), I think the lack of a Postgres, Inc. is going to hinder adoption. Companies want to 'buy' from vendors that look like real, viable companies, and provide them products with support, training, features, and direction. With MySQL, you get one stop shopping. With Postgres, you've got to find and assemble the parts yourself. Most CIOs stop there, and start waiting for MySQL to get better before switching from Oracle. I would expect that technical people (which would be DBAs and application developers) should be doing this research and reporting the results to the CIO. The other issue is marketing: in mature software markets, the best marketing (not the best technology) often wins. Without a sizeable marketing budget earmarked for Postgres, MySQL could be 60% as good and still win, unfortunately. It is not clear that Postgres needs to win. It needs to have enough people interested in it in order to continue to significant development. It doesn't need to have a majority of the market share in order to do this. I suspect that get a larger market share amoungst some categories of users will hurt development by requiring more support than they contribute back to the project. For those that look to Apache: Apache never had a well-established incumbent (Oracle), an a well-funded upstart competitor (MySQL). Rob McCool's NCSA httpd (and later, Apache) were good enough and developed rapidly enough that they prevented any other HTTP server projects from getting critical mass. Perhaps for a while. There are open source web servers now. A derivative of AOLserver is used by openACS. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
On Mon, 26 Apr 2004, Andrew Payne wrote: Bruce asked an excellent question: My question is, What can we learn from MySQL? I don't know there is anything, but I think it makes sense to ask the question. After watching the traffic on this, the biggest MySQL lesson has gone largely unmentioned: that a well-funded, well-marketed, focused commercial entity clearly associated with the project can do wonders to overcome feature and technical shortcomings. At some point (probably there now), I think the lack of a Postgres, Inc. is going to hinder adoption. Companies want to 'buy' from vendors that look like real, viable companies, and provide them products with support, training, features, and direction. With MySQL, you get one stop shopping. With Postgres, you've got to find and assemble the parts yourself. Most CIOs stop there, and start waiting for MySQL to get better before switching from Oracle. I'm gonna disagree here. I think that not having a postgresql inc to go to means that by the time postgresql becomes ubiquitous, it will be like apache. no company behind it, every company using it. I.e. we'll earn our stripes one at a time by proving we're the better database for 95% of all purposes, and anyone not using postgresql will be behind the power curve and doing themselves no favor. like CIO's who call Open Source Shareware and believe that .net provides for a more efficient programming environment, people who poo poo postgresql will find themselves behind the 8 ball in the long run. No need for a postgresql inc to do that, just time, good code, and knowledgable DBAs choosing it more and more often. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
Jim C. Nasby wrote: Maybe also a more generic section about how PGSQL is different from other databases. Maybe I'm just dense, but it took me a long time to figure out the whole lack of stored procedures thing (yes, PGSQL obviously has the functionality, but many experienced DBAs won't associate functions with stored procs). Pointing out the documentation on MVCC and how it changes how you want to use the database would be good, as would links to documentation on what postgresql.conf settings you want to change out of the box. I think this is a good idea. And you seem to be suggesting that it includes information on differences in nomenclature as well. On the other topics... I think the biggest service PGSQL could provide to the open source community is a resource that teaches people with no database experience the fundamentals of databases. If people had an understanding of what a RDBMS should be capable of and how it should be used, they wouldn't pick MySQL. I think that this is incredibly important. Many many developers choose MySQL because MySQL really does make the effort in this regard. This strategy has helped both MySQL and Red Hat become the commercial successes they are today. Having a windows port is critical for 'student mindshare'. If PGSQL can't play on windows, professors can't use it. Likewise, installation on OS X should be made as easy as possible. PostgreSQL *can* play on Windows (via Cygwin) and I am not sure that this is so important to student mindshare. Howener, it is important for another reason: a windows port (even one labled for development use only) would go a LONG way towards recruiting new faces into our community, as it would lower the barrier to entry for using the database (yes, the Cygwin installer because of the ipc stuff is a reasonable barrier to entry). Best Wishes, Chris Travers Metatron Technology Consulting ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
On Mon, 26 Apr 2004, Andrew Payne wrote: For those that look to Apache: Apache never had a well-established incumbent (Oracle), an a well-funded upstart competitor (MySQL). Rob McCool's NCSA httpd (and later, Apache) were good enough and developed rapidly enough that they prevented any other HTTP server projects from getting critical mass. This is a followup to my previous message where I mentioned apache, but did not really followup on it. While Apache is and has been wildly popular for bulk hosing and domain parking, for serious commercial use, Netscape's enterprise server, now Sun One, has long been a leader in commercial web sites. That has now changed too. While Netscape's server was pretty good, it is simply harder to configure, not as versatile as apache, and not as reliable or as fast nowadays. This was not always the case. There was a time when its performance was considered to be much better than apache (I'm thinking about apache 1.3.4 or so) and apache configuration was a black art few understood. with modern gui tools for configuring apache, and the incredible performance gains the late model 1.3 versions and now 2.0.x versions have, it is quickly displacing the more expensive netscape. Apache did not start in first place when it comes to enterprise class web servers, no matter how many small personal web sites ran on it. Most commercial companies didn't use it at first. It too had to earn its stripes over time and by proving it was better. Now I know people who think Open Source is just so much pie in the sky hand waving philosophical candy who think apache and jboss are the bomb. they'll come around on PostgreSQL too, once someone with some foresight points out the advantages it has. and one of its advantages is that it doesn't have a large monolithic organization driving development. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
On Tue, 2004-04-27 at 21:56, scott.marlowe wrote: On Mon, 26 Apr 2004, Andrew Payne wrote: Bruce asked an excellent question: My question is, What can we learn from MySQL? I don't know there is anything, but I think it makes sense to ask the question. Ignore the opposition and focus. Look outward, not inward. Best Regards, Simon ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
On the other topics... I think the biggest service PGSQL could provide to the open source community is a resource that teaches people with no database experience the fundamentals of databases. If people had an understanding of what a RDBMS should be capable of and how it should be used, they wouldn't pick MySQL. I think that this is incredibly important. Many many developers choose MySQL because MySQL really does make the effort in this regard. This strategy has helped both MySQL and Red Hat become the commercial successes they are today. I believe that postgres is making an effort here. I learned SQL from the postgres docs found in the first few chapters here: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.4/static/tutorial.html Those, in my opinion, are excellent, and were way more informative to me than anything on the MySQL website (I tried reading there first). Maybe we are aiming for users who had a clue quotient much lower than I, but those attain an excellent balance between too short and simple to be useful and too long and complicated. Paul Tillotson ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
Andrew Payne wrote: Also, Apache never had MyApache, a more popular version that many believe to be free and open source. My point: Apache was successful in a situation that may not apply here. Does anyone know of an open source project that *has* successfully displaced a market of mature, established products WITHOUT a commercial entity providing marketing, support direction? Linux. It doesn't have a single company behind it, but several. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
On Apr 23, 2004, at 8:35 AM, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: My question is, What can we learn from MySQL? I don't know there is anything, but I think it makes sense to ask the question. Questions I have are: I have already told Bruce at length about the single most common complaint in the phpPgAdmin lists and in the IRC channel: the inability to change column types. I think we should listen to the punters on that one. Also, how about a new section in the manual: PostgreSQL for MySQL users and PostgreSQL for Oracle users? Hello Bruce, Chris and everyone, So far I have offered free PHP5/ PostgreSQL hosting to around 800 developers that signed up on dotgeek.org I gathered a number of feedback. Overall many PHP developers are extremely impressed by PostgreSQL but they never had the chance/found a reason to try it. The issues are related mainly to the syntax. Here MySQL, by using non standards systems, is making the move not that easy to many developers. Marketing is an important point, so is being able to let the highest number of people to try PostgreSQL and see the difference. Another problem is, as far as I can say, their easier to search and more user friendly manual. I know that Alexey is working on that so I will think about a way to contribute directly. Users (and monitored) comments are a must IMHO. Cheers David Costa Chris ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
My question is, What can we learn from MySQL? I don't know there is anything, but I think it makes sense to ask the question. Questions I have are: I have already told Bruce at length about the single most common complaint in the phpPgAdmin lists and in the IRC channel: the inability to change column types. I think we should listen to the punters on that one. Also, how about a new section in the manual: PostgreSQL for MySQL users and PostgreSQL for Oracle users? Chris ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send unregister YourEmailAddressHere to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: My question is, What can we learn from MySQL? I don't know there is anything, but I think it makes sense to ask the question. Questions I have are: I have already told Bruce at length about the single most common complaint in the phpPgAdmin lists and in the IRC channel: the inability to change column types. I think we should listen to the punters on that one. Yea, I will push that for 7.5. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
Am Freitag, 23. April 2004 06:09 schrieb Bruce Momjian: o Are we marketing ourselves properly? o Are we focused enough on ease-of-use issues? o How do we position ourselves against a database that some say is good enough (MySQL), and another one that some say is too much (Oracle) o Are our priorities too technically driven? Success is not measured by absolute number of installations. You can measure success by having enough users so that the project can continue, enough users so you can make a living, more satisfied users than unsatisfied ones, more heavy-duty installations than personal database-driven websites, and by having a product that you feel good about. The only way to position ourselves is as the relational database with the best price/performance ration (price = TOC, performance = features + speed). And the only way to achieve any of these goals is by focussing on technology and ease of use. For the crowd out there, PostgreSQL is an exciting and growing topic. That's more important than the installation count. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, Bruce Momjian wrote: Here is a blog about a recent MySQL conference with title, Why MySQL Grew So Fast: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4715 and a a Slashdot discussion about it: http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/20/2229212mode=nestedtid=137tid=185tid=187tid=198 My question is, What can we learn from MySQL? I don't know there is anything, but I think it makes sense to ask the question. My immediate rhetorical response is What could the Tortoise learn from the Hare? I think we all know which is which in my question. Questions I have are: o Are we marketing ourselves properly? I'm never sure about this. I think the best marketing is experienced users selling pg to their bosses one at a time. While our MSSQL servers at work have died under load innumerable times, our small collection of postgresql servers (one's so old and embedded it's running 6.4) have been very reliable. So, slowly but surely, PostgreSQL is proving itself here. o Are we focused enough on ease-of-use issues? Enough for me, but I don't think databases should necessarily be all that easy to use by people who don't understand basic relational theory. So for me, ease of use means things like transactable DDL and well indexed, well written documentation. I suspect ease of use for my boss is something entirely differnt, and may have to do with why he bought the EMS postgresql manager packages he did. o How do we position ourselves against a database that some say is good enough (MySQL), and another one that some say is too much (Oracle) Hey, we're like the porridge in goldilock's, just right... :-) dba folks don't pick MySQL, because it's so limited and basically has so many bugs (it's a feature that we don't bounds check data!) And it's pretty easy to get an Oracle guy to play with postgresql when you show him things like transactionable DDL. o Are our priorities too technically driven? I don't think so. But I'm a database / coder geek. :-) ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 02:35:48PM +0800, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: My question is, What can we learn from MySQL? I don't know there is anything, but I think it makes sense to ask the question. Questions I have are: I have already told Bruce at length about the single most common complaint in the phpPgAdmin lists and in the IRC channel: the inability to change column types. I think we should listen to the punters on that one. Also, how about a new section in the manual: PostgreSQL for MySQL users and PostgreSQL for Oracle users? Maybe also a more generic section about how PGSQL is different from other databases. Maybe I'm just dense, but it took me a long time to figure out the whole lack of stored procedures thing (yes, PGSQL obviously has the functionality, but many experienced DBAs won't associate functions with stored procs). Pointing out the documentation on MVCC and how it changes how you want to use the database would be good, as would links to documentation on what postgresql.conf settings you want to change out of the box. On the other topics... I think the biggest service PGSQL could provide to the open source community is a resource that teaches people with no database experience the fundamentals of databases. If people had an understanding of what a RDBMS should be capable of and how it should be used, they wouldn't pick MySQL. Having a windows port is critical for 'student mindshare'. If PGSQL can't play on windows, professors can't use it. Likewise, installation on OS X should be made as easy as possible. That's for the 'low end' users (many of whom will eventually become 'high end'). For professionals who have database expertise, the comparison guide will help a lot. The other thing that will help is continuing to bring enterprise-class features in, like multi-master replication, partitioning, and clustering. But since people tend to think most about the technology, I'm sure those will make it in eventually anyway. :) -- Jim C. Nasby, Database Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] Member: Triangle Fraternity, Sports Car Club of America Give your computer some brain candy! www.distributed.net Team #1828 Windows: Where do you want to go today? Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow? FreeBSD: Are you guys coming, or what? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
