MySQL RANT was: PVR or DVR for Linux - NOT MythTV

[markw-FJ05HQ0HCKaWd6l5hS35sQ at public.gmane.org]

I don't want to start a flame war but I got to get this off my chest.
Please don't take anything personally. It is probably more about lack of
coffee.


-- RANT START --

I do not like MySQL. I don't like the organization and I don't like the
software. I don't like the bogus benchmarks they use. It is a bad database
and I do not wish to have it running on my system. It is both a technical
decision and a form of protest.

I am a Linux user because I choose to be. This sometimes means not using
some otherwise good programs that only on Windows because I choose not to
run Windows.

Almost every argument about using MySQL despite its suckage are the same
arguments for using Windows. They are false and easily refuted.

If a program chooses to only use MySQL, I can only assume the developers
are clueless about databases in general and that does not bode well for
the quality of their code.

-- RANT END --

continue in-line:

> Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 13:13:16 -0400
> From: Tom Metro <blu-5a1Jt6qxUNc at public.gmane.org>
> Subject: Re: PVR or DVR for Linux - NOT MythTV
> To: L-blu <discuss-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org>
> Message-ID: <4664482C.7050101-5a1Jt6qxUNc at public.gmane.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> markw-FJ05HQ0HCKaWd6l5hS35sQ at public.gmane.org wrote:
>> I don't want to run a database server just for an application.
> ...
>> If the application is going to embed its database, then let
>> it do what it wants.
>
> I've read that MythTV is moving towards an embedded MySQL.

Again, MySQL is not an option.

>
>
>> If I have to run a database server, I want to be able to chose my
>> database.
>
> This is an "old school" view of databases. I've ran into this before
> when selling a product using MySQL into large organizations. If Oracle
> is their in-house database, then they want everything to run on Oracle,
> even if that means performance will suffer.

There is no way performance would suffer by using Oracle instead of MySQL.
MySQL only outperforms other databases on carefully constructed benchmarks
in read-only situations or single user operations. EVERY real-life project
that I have seen using MySQL is a dog. (For anyone saying xyz corp is
using MySQL, it must be good, see above rant about how the arguments are
false and easily refuted.)

I did a project for Yahoo, I spec'ed Oracle or PostgreSQL because of large
volume and high concurrency. I developed using PostgreSQL, queries took 10
seconds to run on HUGE tables with lots of activity. Due to a political
problem at yahoo, It had to run on BSD and they did not have internal
support for PostgreSQL, so they said use MySQL. Never again. On a well
tuned MySQL, one query took 12 minutes.

Now, if you tell my that my properly constructed queries need to be
rewritten to work with MySQL, I will tell you instead that MySQL is
lacking basic SQL functionality.

I had to re-write the queries specifically for MySQL meaning that standard
techniques for writing efficient queries have to be abandoned. The queries
still didn't do as well as the PostgreSQL version. Oddly enough, the MySQL
constructed queries did just as well on PostgreSQL as the old ones, I was
surprised, but I shouldn't be because PostgreSQL is a better system with a
better query analyzer and planning system.

>
> It's easy to treat MySQL as an embedded database, even without using the
> embedded version which I believe has only recently become available. It
> requires few resources, minimal maintenance, and can be configured to
> talk to its clients over a UNIX socket, so there are no network security
> risks and no conflicts with other processes.

SQLite already fills that gap.

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