Message-ID: <408F1D40.50508@shentel.net>
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 22:56:00 -0400
From: Paul Tillotson <pntil@shentel.net>
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To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?
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On the other topics...

>> I think the biggest service PGSQL could provide to the open source
>> community is a resource that teaches people with no database experience
>> the fundamentals of databases. If people had an understanding of what a
>> RDBMS should be capable of and how it should be used, they wouldn't pick
>> MySQL.
>>  
>>
>
> I think that this is incredibly important.  Many many developers 
> choose MySQL because MySQL really does make the effort in this 
> regard.  This strategy has helped both MySQL and Red Hat become the 
> commercial successes they are today.

I believe that postgres is making an effort here.  I learned SQL from 
the postgres docs found in the first few chapters here:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.4/static/tutorial.html

Those, in my opinion, are excellent, and were way more informative to me 
than anything on the MySQL website (I tried reading there first).  Maybe 
we are aiming for users who had a clue quotient much lower than I, but 
those attain an excellent balance between too short and simple to be 
useful and too long and complicated.

Paul Tillotson