[Novalug] NOVALUG meets Saturday: MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL

[Jeff Stoner]

On Wed, 2 May 2007, Joel Fouse wrote:

Y'all are really trying to put me on the spot, aren't you?  :-)

>> Perhaps this is old news - but how well do MySQL and PostgreSQL really
>> pass the ACID test? Also, conformance to the latest SQL standards?

I'm not going to try and rattle off conformance and divergence with 
standards, especially since I, myself, don't know the gory details. So, 
instead, I'll post some links to certain "specs" that people are going to 
want to know about, in regards to MySQL.

SQL Compliance:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/compatibility.html

Character sets:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/charset-charsets.html

Unicode:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/charset-unicode.html

Data types:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/data-type-overview.html

Storage Engine types:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/storage-engines.html

Spatial extensions:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/spatial-extensions.html

Limits and restrictions:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/restrictions.html

Finally, I'll say this, the documentation on MySQL.com is very good. I use 
it very frequently. The stable release of MySQL is the 5.0x branch. The 
5.1x branch is beta and the 6.0 branch (formerly 5.2) is alpha. I'm not 
going to talk about features in 5.1 or 6.0 since I've not used those 
releases.

The Roadmap in the 5.1 docs highlight what major database features were 
added (in which release) including up coming features.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/roadmap.html

>> Also, not sure if any of you read this - but some time ago i read
>> something to the effect that Oracle bought the "engine" out from under
>> MySQL and that MySQL responded that they would re-code their own
>> engine for MySQL. It's enough to decide which database to use - now

Actually, Oracle bought two, Innobase OY, makers of the InnoDB engine, and 
Sleepycat Software, Inc., makers of Berkley DB, another engine in MySQL.

Innobase Oy is a subsidiary of Oracle, which acquired Innobase in October, 
2005.
http://www.oracle.com/innodb/index.html

Oracle acquires Sleepycat Software, Inc. in February, 2006.
http://www.oracle.com/sleepycat/index.html


>> you have to decide which "engine" to put in the database!? That does
>> not inspire confidence in me... but I'm still curious... and keeping
>> an eye on developments... ;-)

What engine to choose and why...that's a topic for discussion at the 
meeting.  :-)

--Jeff

"I am not available for comment"