Thread

1. Postgresql for Yoga's Data Store

   Oliver Giller <giller@genius.rider.edu> — 1998-06-06T18:45:29Z

   Yoga needs a Data Store
   
   Yoga is a GPL version of Notes. One of the parts of the project is to
   use a data store, and they have decided to go with Sleepycat Berkeley
   DB. Yoga is still in the designing phase, so now is the best time to
   respond to their thoughts on Postgresql. For example, I know the
   documentation has really improved. Some people don't know how far
   Postgresql has advanced.
   
   This came from the original plan for Yoga (formally known as gnuotes).
   The document can be found at
   http://samba.anu.edu.au/yoga/documentation/original/docs/gnuotes.htm
   
   Product Comparison
   
   There is a reasonable hole in the FSF/GNU product suite when it comes to
   good database products. The perfect database back end
   for the data store would of been Solid SQL from Solid Technologies
   (http://www.solid.fi). Unfortunately this is a commercial product
   which is not free for free software projects. Several other products where
   looked at however. 
   
   Postgresql is probably the most mature and stable of the FSF/GNU database
   product line, but it suffers from a few drawbacks. In
   particular is has no automatic recovery, administrator intervention is
   always required. [check status of transaction management and
   logging]. Documentation is sparse to non existent. 
   
   Beagle and GNU SQL are only about 60% and 70% complete respectfully.
   Neither is ready for prime time, although their status may
   change considerably over the course of this project. 
   
   Sleepycat Berkeley DB is a commercial product, which is however, free for
   open source developers. It comes complete with source
   code. It offers both roll forward and roll back error recovery, as well as
   support for locking and transactions. Future versions will
   support multiple indexes per database (can be faked for now) as well as
   inclusion in the glibc distributions. It is however very much
   of a "roll your own" database product. 
   
   
   
   Let me know what your feedback is, and I can pass it on to the Yoga
   team. I think Postgresql and Yoga could make a great team.
   
   Oliver
   
   
   

2. Re: [GENERAL] Postgresql for Yoga's Data Store

   Marc Fournier <scrappy@hub.org> — 1998-06-07T16:44:59Z

   On Sat, 6 Jun 1998, Oliver Giller wrote:
   
   > Postgresql is probably the most mature and stable of the FSF/GNU database
   > product line, but it suffers from a few drawbacks. 
   
   	Drawback 1: We are *not* a FSF/GNU database product, and never
   will be...we are a 'Berkeley product' if anything...
   
   > In
   > particular is has no automatic recovery
   
   	What is "automatic recovery"?  My first thought would be that its
   the transactional rollback capability that we do have...unless they mean
   crash recovery?  And Oracle doesn't have that automatic either (we deal
   with it at work)...
   
   > , administrator intervention is
   > always required. [check status of transaction management and
   > logging]. 
   
   	This one kinda loses me...what are they looking for here?
   
   > Documentation is sparse to non existent. 
   
   	As you mentioned earlier, this has changed drastically in the last
   release, and continues to do so...
   
   Marc G. Fournier                                
   Systems Administrator @ hub.org 
   primary: scrappy@hub.org           secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org