From: Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org>
Subject: Re: Postgres performance
Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 12:39:13 -0500
Organization: cbbrowne Computing Inc
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To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org

lists@boutiquenumerique.com (PFC) writes:
>> The reason PostgreSQL is slower is because it (and by extension the team
>> behind it) cares about your data.
>
> 	Sure, postgres is (a bit but not much) slower for a simple
> query like SELECT * FROM one table WHERE id=some number, and
> postgres is a lot slower for UPDATES (although I heard that it's
> faster than MySQL InnoDB)...

There is a _HUGE_ set of misconceptions here.

  1.  The speed difference is only repeatedly true for simple selects
      when done against MyISAM tables.

  2.  That speed difference for UPDATEs is only true if you are talking
      about ONE MySQL(tm) client doing updates against MyISAM tables.

      MyISAM does not support row locks; if multiple clients are
      trying to update a table, they must fight for a single table
      lock, with the result that updating tables doesn't scale _at
      all_ with MySQL(tm) for the default table type.

If you only have one process touching the database, MySQL(tm) can
therefore look quite a lot better than PostgreSQL.  Move to 2 clients
and it's not quite so good.  Move to 100 concurrent clients all trying
to do updates and you may discover that you simply can't do that...
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