[Novalug] January Meeting Topic(Oracle Poll)

Kevin Kitts kevin.kitts@gmail.com
Wed Dec 6 15:11:02 EST 2006


I've used only Oracle, SYBASE and MS SQL Server over the years - I've read
through the documentation of MySQL and PostgreSQL from time to time - but
never taken the plunge to really learn them.

As I've read through the documentation for MySQL and PostgreSQL it appears
to me - for MySQL particularly - that the ability to process transactions is
not as well developed as Oracle. Does anyone find it interesting that Oracle
has bought the MySQL engine and now there is talk that MySQL will develop
another engine? This is not what you want to hear if you are storing
important financial or other data.

PostgreSQL looks very interesting to me - since I now do Oracle work almost
exclusively. The PostgreSQL architecture and procedural language seems
similar/familar - I've seen comparisons that put it at about the
Oracle 7.3level - which was one of my favorite Oracle releases.

In general, I've found Oracle to be rock-solid reliable. It is also
extremely comfigurable - which is both a blessing and a curse. You can
tailor it to do anything imaginable - but with that flexibility comes the
cost of complexity - and the consequence that reliable Oracle database
systems have to be set up with people that have a fair amont of experience.

BTW, my experience has been that Oracle database is extremely reliable - but
that the further you move away from their "core competancy" - the more
painful your life becomes. Their applications suite was a dog - hence they
decided to buy PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards and ReTek. Oracle Forms!? - ugly...
Their app server!? - I wish they'd just buy WebLogic as was rumored...

Also, since Oracle developed command line DBA interfaces first they have
always struggled with the interface of their DBA tools. I don't think that
they get ease of use. MS SQL Server, on the other hand, provides a GUI - and
then command line as an afterthought. Therefore, their GUI pretty much has
got to work. In Oracle you always seem to need to resort to the command line
for something - I'm OK with that, though... ;-)

These things seem to become religious wars... I'm not interested in
fighting... I actually followed a VA company for awhile that looked like it
was going to try and commercialize PostgreSQL - but they went out of
business...I think that an interesting business idea might be to do
conversions of Oracle to some database like PostgreSQL...

I'm rambling... ;-)

Kevin



On 12/6/06, gregory pryzby <greg@pryzby.org> wrote:
>
> 1) NEED to read EVERYTHING to see if anyone stepped up to talk in Jan.
> 2) I need to see when people said they could talk on what
> 3) I don't have ANY talks set for 2007; just speakers w/o dates
>
> On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 09:05:38AM -0800, Doug Needham wrote:
> > If there is interest, I can put something together.
> >
> > A general comparison of these databases :
> >
> > msql, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server ?
> >
> > Greg, do we have the next few months set up?
> >
> > I don't think I could do this in Jan.
>
>
> --
> greg pryzby                              greg at pryzby dot org
> fingerprint: 8A1A DB90 869F 5DD1 D6E9 EEB6 C156 6B04 849F A86F
>
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