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To: Robert Treat <xzilla@users.sourceforge.net>
Cc: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@dcc.uchile.cl>, Tim Conrad <tim@timconrad.org>,
	"Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@postgresql.org>,
	PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>,
	PostgreSQL advocacy <pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?
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From: jearl@bullysports.com
Date: Tue, 04 May 2004 15:16:48 -0600
In-Reply-To: <200405041506.53411.xzilla@users.sourceforge.net> (Robert
	Treat's message of "Tue, 4 May 2004 15:06:53 -0400")
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Robert Treat <xzilla@users.sourceforge.net> writes:

> On Tuesday 27 April 2004 15:12, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
>> You know, that's kind of the point of all things related to MySQL.
>> "It's better than nothing."  PostgreSQL doesn't do things because
>> "it's better than nothing."  <snip> (Same as how MySQL guesses the
>> result of a modulo operation, and gets it wrong.  They don't care
>> and you can read that on the manual.  In Postgres, this is a bug.)
>>
>
> Hey Alvaro, are you familiar with "worse is better" philosphy in
> software development and how that leads to adoption rates? It
> basically states that simplicity is the ultimate design goal over
> correctness, consitency, and completness.  Because of this more
> people are able to quickly adopt a technology, which allows the
> incorrectness/inconsistency/incompletness to be address by new
> comers and gradually bring the software up to higher standards.  I
> was reading some blogs the other day that applied this to PHP's
> adoption rate over Java and .net, but your comment made me think
> this really applies to my$ql and postgresql as well. check out
> http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1121502&postcount=2
> for a bit more.

The problem with the "Worse is Better" philosophy is that it almost
totally overlooks price, which is arguably the most important factor
in deciding which technologies get adopted.  The real trick is being
"good enough" at the lowest price.  When MySQL became the de-facto web
database (back in the Postgres95 and Postgres 6.X days) PostgreSQL
simply wasn't "good enough" for most sites.  PostgreSQL, in those
days, was slow, buggy, and decidedly non-standard (anyone else
remember PostQUEL).

On the plus side I personally don't think that Free Software databases
have really hit their stride yet, and I believe that when they do
PostgreSQL is going to be front and center.  MySQL is a pretty handy
datastore, but PostgreSQL is a far more useful tool for creating
complex applications.

Jason