[Cialug] mysql database design

[Matthew Nuzum]

On 8/9/07, Tony Bibbs <tony at tonybibbs.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Forgive me, that sounded a little harsher than I meant it. MySQL is
> > good for some tasks (like full text search, which rocks). But when I
> > need more complex logic at the db level I use Postgres.
>
> You know I hear that alot but have yet run into cases where MySQL
> performance is so bad you can make it work.  Most cases I've had where
> MySQL doesn't work well was the result of poor design, not the DBMS.
> Now if your point is that maybe MySQL isn't a tolerant of poorly
> designed databases as other DBMS's then you may have a point.

It comes down to familiarity for me. If I just need some place to
store data, I'll use whatever is easiest to reach.

However, if I need advanced features, yes, MySQL and PG both have some
overlap, but I've been using them in PG for years, so I fall back to
what I'm comfortable with and what I know works.

I'm kind of irritated that it takes special effort for MySQL to have
transaction support (you have to specify the table type, by default
you get MyIsam). I guess it makes sense that enabling innodb by
default takes away one of MySQL's biggest selling points (raw speed),
so I can understand why this is done. But it does help maintain the
image that MySQL is fast but weak compared to others.

For two weeks now I've been having fits with MySQL and utf8 chars.
Finally on Monday I tracked the problem down to the database when I
switched my project to Postgres and everything worked. Tried it with
sqlite too and it worked great. I don't know if my prob was in the
driver or the orm or the database itself, I just know that I was
pulling my hair out.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode