I can echo some of the sentiments below. I first tried to install and use
Postgres but gave up because of my unfamiliarity with sql databases and
Unix/Linux (I did have Linux up and running but found the Postgres install
manual "unfriendly").
So I decided to use MySQL for my first SQL project. I found both the
manual and the user groups much more "friendly" than the Postgres
counterparts.
After about a year of MySQL experience, I experimented with
Postgres. Without my previous experience with MySQL, I would not have
succeeded with Postgres. The install on Solaris was particularly
painful. I did manage to get Postgres installed and I mimicked the MySQL
database I had developed. I also found the speed slower than with MySQL.
>MySQL and Postgres are both fine pieces of software, but I prefer MySQL as
>well. It's much more user (where the user is a programmer) friendly.
>
>I can mention a few "gotchas" when it comes to moving from MySQL to
>Postgres...
>
>* A row in Postgres can only be 8kb. This is a huge flaming pain.
> And the BLOB support is not at all transparent! BLOBs are very hard
> to deal with. The TOAST project is helping to make this easier, but
> it will be several months at best before it's available, in e.g. Pg 7.1
>* "alter table" isn't nearly as command-rich in Pg as it is in MySQL.
> Yeah, so a lot of MySQL's 'alter table' commands are really wrappers
> around "create table, copy table, delete table, rename table", etc...
> At least they're done automatically! That's nice. In Pg, if you want
> to do something as simple as drop a column from a table, you need to
> go through this annoying process by yourself.
>* The documention for Pg on its website, while complete, isn't organized
> in anywhere near as helpful as way as the documentation for MySQL.
> You spend time trying to find things, and then you'll spend time scratching
> your head wondering what kind of crackhead simian decided to put X in
> _that_ chapter.
>* Pg is so slow that it will make you want to eat your spleen. The case
> where this was most obvious to me was when I wrote a Perl program that
> took in a text file with about 60k lines, split it all up, and for each
> line wrote a row in about 4 different Pg tables. Yeah, there were a lot
> of indices and whatnot involved. The import on a Celery 400 took about
> 7 hours. Then, we tried doing the same thing on MySQL -- took about 5
> minutes. Of course, ref. integrity, foreign keys, etc. under Pg is what's
> to blame here, but still, this stank.
>* Pg doesn't support SQL 'join' syntax. Ouch! So much for Pg being SQL92
> compliant. [This is one of the things about MySQL that I really like...
> even if it would be better if it handled 'cube' and 'rollup', too :-) ]
>* The lack of equivalents to 'mysqlshow' and 'mysqldump' bugs me. Maybe
> there's a command line invocation of 'psql' that would do the job, but
> if ever I learned it I've forgotten what it would be. And sometimes, it's
> nice to just have a simple command I can fire off.
>* The psql interface to getting descriptive information re: tables, etc.
> is just crummy. Get ready to use "\d..." a whole lot. Please, just
> "describe table" me!
>* Considering 'sequences' to be their own objects, mainly divorced from
> the columns and tables they're ostensibly attached to, gets really
> cumbersome to manage.
>* The output of a database dump is _really_ hard to read/follow, mainly
> because of the 'create sequence' stuff. If you want to know how to
> recreate just _one_ of your tables, you have to fish all over the output
> of the dump to figure out how to do that. It doesn't even have the
> 'courtesy' to clump all info needed to create a given table together
> in one place. (Of course, given the strong ref. integrity, it's possible
> that this can't be done. Which would still make it inconvenient.)
>
>I'm sure there are a few more things re: Pg that bug the heck out of me.
>but that's all I can think of now.
>
>Don't worry... it's not all bad... transaction are really nice to have.
>(That's why we're using it.) And the ODBMS features can be fun to play with
>sometimes.
>
>Cheers,
>Richard
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Richard Dice * Personal 514 816 9568 * Fax 514 816 9569
> ShadNet Creator * http://shadnet.shad.ca/ * rdice@stripped
> Occasional Writer, HotWired * http://www.hotwired.com/webmonkey/
> "squeeze the world 'til it's small enough to join us heel to toe"
> - jesus jones
>
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Christopher R. Jones, P.Eng.
14 Oneida Avenue
Toronto, Ontario M5J 2E3
Tel. 416 203-7465
Fax. 416 203-3044
Email cj@stripped
