[Leaplist] curious about mysql vs postgres...

[Aaron Morrison]

On 01 Oct 2008, at 23:45, tom foster wrote:

> On Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:13:42 -0400
> Fred Moore <fmoor at fmeco.com> wrote:
>
>> Damien McKenna wrote:
>
>>>
>>> MySQL Is easier to learn, but PostgreSQL is more powerful.
>>>
>
> That's what I thought.

The differences are more historical than anything.  There was a time  
when MySQL supported a small subset of the SQL language (e.g. no  
subqueries or stored procedures/functions) and used a flat file  
storage engine.  This made  it fast and very easy to implement (much  
like sqlite is today).

Since PostgreSQL came out of a project called Ingres (which was  
probably the earliest SQL implementation that I'm aware of), it's  
feature set has been more mature and complete for much longer.  Thus  
the reputation of being 'more powerful' and 'more complicated'.

Nowadays, while there are some significant differences (ACID, custom  
datatyping), they are more the same than different (from a SQL  
language point of view).

>
>
>> what do you want to do with it
>>
>
> Not much.  I'll probably be setting up some forums in the near future.
> I've tried postgres once, mysql more often, and even sqlite, but I
> thought postgres was the big dog on the street and wondered if I  
> should
> inflict myself with learning it...


Inflict yourself with learning the SQL language itself and database  
design.  No features of a SQL server will overcome a poorly designed  
database. That is where you'll be spending most of your time anyway.

Either system will do.

--am