Thread

1. Why does everyone think MySQL is easier?

   Nigel J. Andrews <nandrews@investsystems.co.uk> — 2002-11-28T00:20:00Z

   Just a comment on the comparative state of MySQL rather than anything of
   significance.
   
   Why do people say MySQL is easier to install and manage than PostgreSQL? I
   can't say I've had much difficulty getting PostgreSQL installed and working
   from source a yet I've just installed a binary MySQL tarball and it doesn't
   start.
   
   Okay, the key is to work on the principle that the instructions are a guide and
   not an exact list of what should be done. But then I haven't tried using it
   yet.
   
   
   -- 
   Nigel J. Andrews
   
   
   

2. Re: Why does everyone think MySQL is easier?

   Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> — 2002-11-28T00:38:24Z

   "Nigel J. Andrews" <nandrews@investsystems.co.uk> writes:
   > Why do people say MySQL is easier to install and manage than PostgreSQL?
   
   I think that "conventional wisdom" is a reflection of where things were
   three or four years ago, not where they are today.  I can't speak to
   MySQL's improvement, but we've sure made some huge strides since then.
   
   			regards, tom lane
   
   

3. Re: Why does everyone think MySQL is easier?

   Mats Lofkvist <mal@algonet.se> — 2002-11-28T14:35:59Z

   My experience is that the majority of the things considered
   easier to do in MySQL are just done differently in Postgres
   and hence makes Postgres look slightly harder to manage to
   those used to MySQL (and vice versa, but I suspect there
   are more people with MySQL experience trying out Postgres
   than the other way around).
   
   
   A few things comes to mind making MySQL somewhat easier though:
   
   - it is extremely rare for an upgrade to require dump/restore
   
   - you don't have to worry about running vacuum analyze regularly
   
   
   The common dump/restore requirement with Postgres makes it
   harder to manage an installation (especially with lots of
   databases) since a software upgrade must be synchronized
   with a database reload for all databases (*).
   
   The need for vacuum makes Postgres work less well straight
   out of the box, if you don't know about it your performance
   will slowly go down the drain. (I don't remember how the
   vacuum improvements in 7.3 change this, will a 7.3
   installation work reasonably well without vacuum being run
   at all e.g. in a scenario with lots of updates? (**))
   
   
         _
   Mats Lofkvist
   mal@algonet.se
   
   
   (*) A temporary fix to this could be to change the
       installation to install under a versioned directory
       (a la gcc) just making the lastest version the default
       and maybe then change postmaster to start the correct
       version of the server after checking the database?
       Even if the latter part is left out, just having the
       old versions still available by default would improve
       things imho. And of course postmaster should refuse
       to start with a version mismatch (at least unless
       some override flag is used), but maybe this is
       already the case?
   
   (**) If not, the auto-vacuum I have seen discussed
       will be even more welcome :-)
   
   

4. Re: Why does everyone think MySQL is easier?

   Shridhar Daithankar <shridhar_daithankar@persistent.co.in> — 2002-11-28T15:10:16Z

   On 28 Nov 2002 at 15:35, Mats Lofkvist wrote:
   > My experience is that the majority of the things considered
   > easier to do in MySQL are just done differently in Postgres
   > and hence makes Postgres look slightly harder to manage to
   > those used to MySQL (and vice versa, but I suspect there
   > are more people with MySQL experience trying out Postgres
   > than the other way around).
   
   I agree with that.. While I can start/stop/use postgresql in sleep, I can not 
   say for sure how to start mysql from command-line..
   
   I just found it astonishigly difficult to start and manage.. Only way I could 
   get it working was to link /var/lib/mysql to a spacious location and use mysql 
   service. 
   
   And I am not satisfied with startup scripts provided with distros. They are 
   usually dumber than expected( Long time back, I wrote to mandrake to have 
   configurable database location after release of Mandrake 8.0.. No luck so 
   far..)
   
   > The need for vacuum makes Postgres work less well straight
   > out of the box, if you don't know about it your performance
   > will slowly go down the drain. (I don't remember how the
   > vacuum improvements in 7.3 change this, will a 7.3
   > installation work reasonably well without vacuum being run
   > at all e.g. in a scenario with lots of updates? (**))
   
   In other words, 7.3 has good performance as it is. So if you vacuum, you will 
   see a really blazing performance..
   
   
   Bye
    Shridhar
   
   --
   Absentee, n.:	A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove	
   himself from the sphere of exaction.		-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's 
   Dictionary"
   
   
   

5. Re: Why does everyone think MySQL is easier?

   Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> — 2002-11-28T18:19:06Z

   On Thu, 2002-11-28 at 10:10, Shridhar Daithankar wrote:
   > On 28 Nov 2002 at 15:35, Mats Lofkvist wrote:
   > > The need for vacuum makes Postgres work less well straight
   > > out of the box, if you don't know about it your performance
   > > will slowly go down the drain. (I don't remember how the
   > > vacuum improvements in 7.3 change this, will a 7.3
   > > installation work reasonably well without vacuum being run
   > > at all e.g. in a scenario with lots of updates? (**))
   > 
   > In other words, 7.3 has good performance as it is. So if you vacuum, you will 
   > see a really blazing performance..
   
   Or more accurately, in 7.3 the performance of indexscans should degrade
   less if there are a lot of expired tuples in the table (thanks to Tom
   Lane's work). It won't effect seqscans, though.
   
   Cheers,
   
   Neil
   
   
   

6. Re: Why does everyone think MySQL is easier?

   Holger Klawitter <lists@klawitter.de> — 2002-11-28T22:45:51Z

   Am Donnerstag, 28. November 2002 01:38 schrieb Tom Lane:
   > "Nigel J. Andrews" <nandrews@investsystems.co.uk> writes:
   > > Why do people say MySQL is easier to install and manage than PostgreSQL?
   >
   > I think that "conventional wisdom" is a reflection of where things were
   > three or four years ago, not where they are today.  I can't speak to
   > MySQL's improvement, but we've sure made some huge strides since then.
   
   Just two days ago I had an argument with an MySQL user. He complained that PG 
   has "those weird \ commands" where MySQL uses a notation matching the normal 
   SQL look-and-feel.
   
   With kind regards / mit freundlichem Gruß
   	Holger Klawitter
   --
   Holger Klawitter                          http://www.klawitter.de
   lists@klawitter.de