NYCPHP Meetup

[chalu]

Kyle Tuskey wrote:

>David,
>
>MySQL lacks in quite a few areas.
>
>1) It has poor performance under heavy loads
>
Talk to different practitioners of different databases. They will come 
up with this type of heresay.  There have been side-by-side comparisons 
fo these databases. MySQL does not do badly. But then, if you want more 
enterprise DB, think PostgreSQL.

>2) It lacks key functionality
>
You mean like transaction? foreign key? hot backup? I saw someone 
mentioning INNODB.

>3) Data integrity is currently a big problem
>
>4) Large amounts of data are handled poorly
>
Usually, MYSQL is used by people with less means; no hardware 
controller, no fiber, no SAN. Hey, wait a few months. We will have iSCSI 
and sanify if MS comes up with the driver. I doubt it, though.

>5) It lacks replication and other enterprise level features
>
You give me a database which you replicated successfully.  I doubt you 
have a good example. I can prove you wrong this area.

>6) Backup and recovery features could use improvement
>  
>
Support and maintenance is usual weak point for open-source as 
developers move on.

>Just use MySQL for a while and try to do anything like a join on more
>than two tables.  It chokes.  Other databases are built to handle real
>and heavy processing, whereas MySQL is built for smaller needs.  Some
>will argue the de-normalizing data is always the way to go anyway, but
>unless you are data warehousing there is no need to do it.  It just
>creates poor database design.  You might be able to get away with using
>MySQL on some heavier projects, but that doesn't make it the right tool
>for the job.  As for your enterprise question, I classify enterprise
>level as an application (this is not limited to web applications) that
>is currently or possibly going to be under heavy load and needs to be
>distributed over multiple machines effectively.  The application needs
>to be scalable to decrease the risk of poor application performance with
>increasing loads.  As I said this is often misclassified because people
>throw the word around without cause.  Most applications don't have
>enterprise needs, which makes PHP a great choice for development.
>  
>
It sounds like you should use PG.

>
>
>Kyle
>
>
>  
>