Re: New and investigating

Thanks for your "litle humour and rumour" Aarni.

You evidently are and advocate of the "free" camp, and of course, how else
could it be on this list! ;-)

I apreciate your comments.

About the question on "industry strength", you say that it "truly is" and
should be an industry standard. Hopefuly, and because the truth always
imposes itself (yeah right), it will happen.

Now, how do i go then beyond personal opinions? Like you said yourself, it
"might sound like a bit of propaganda". Nothing bad about it, but one needs
to have hard evidence sometime... Where are the materials, links, companies,
etc... that can back this up?? It is easy for you to say your opinion,
because well... it is yours (!) and you have your own experience about it.
But how about me? I don't have any of these...

Can i possibly start a 'real' project just based on comments? No
Can i invest my rare free time in investigating all this then? No.
(Don't have enough of it. I would probably finish by 2010!)
Do i have peers around it with the experience? Nope.
Can i find enough material to get suficiently confident in PostgreSQL to
just take the risk? Well, not yet...
So, am i just doomed to look at PostgreSQL from far away? (and sigh... :-] )

That can't be so.

I of course understand that PostgreSQL is another kind of effort than Oracle
et al, and doesn't count with its huge salesforce that pushes all kind of
stuff down your throat to show you how good they are, but nevertheless, as
someone who would like to know more (not even yet a 'newcomer'...) i still
expect to find some kind of info that suficiently backs these things. Where
do i find it? (or, how are people suposed to take decisions?)

Or is this illusory? Should i just drop it, and must start with my own tests
to sort this out? That sounds like a lot of work to just begin! Someone
please tell me.

(Tom Lane, how about a shot at this?)

Alain Gougeon
La Paz, Bolivia

----- Original Message -----
From: "Aarni Ruuhimäki" <aarni(dot)ruuhimaki(at)kymi(dot)com>
To: "Alain Gougeon" <agougeon(at)sigma(dot)gov(dot)bo>
Cc: <pgsql-novice(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 9:30 PM
Subject: Re: [NOVICE] New and investigating

> On Tuesday 28 January 2003 10:14 pm, you wrote:
> > there
> >
> > My name is Alain, i have like 14 years behind me working with Oracle,
and
> > nothing else basically.
> >
>
> It's about time ?
>
> > Recently i came across PostgreSQL and found it to be a very atractive
> > thing, in concept at least. I would like to know more about it, but not
> > technically yet, rather on the side of the capabilities it has from a
> > "managerial" point of view. I was wondering if i could find some
pointers
> > here. Thanks everybody for they contributions.
> >
> > (i already saw the oficial PostgreSQL "advocacy" page)
> >
> > The kind of questions that i ask myself are like:
> >
> > . Is it really industrial strength? Where can i find articles/white
> > papers/etc that document it? (many people in the lists mention MySQL
> > and stuff like that, that's another ballgame alltogether)
> >
>
> It truely is, in my opinion it should be the platform-independent industry
> standard. PostgreSQL www-site is a good starting point for the docs. With
> regard to MySQL, it is fairly easy to learn either one, once you know the
> basics of the other one.
>
> > . How does it compare to Oracle and the other main players in regards
> > of solidity, availability, trustability, dificulty of learning,
installing,
> > mantaining?
> >
>
> I'am not familiar with Oracle, by choice I'am afraid, not too keen on
these
> 'official main proprietary players' like MS-SQL (you mean to say? I have
> enough experience with MS-SQL not to play around with it anymore) etc.,
but
> as I see it, there are two standards: unix/linux and the rest of the
world.
> With two years' experience in the real world, and with dos /
win-background,
> I would not even consider setting up a serious db-system on an other
platform
> than linux + pgsql or such like. Learning curve may be steep if you do not
> know your way around the basic command-line environment, but it is really
> worth the 'trouble'. Right to the core, it is actually and amazingly
simple
> and powerful. Ok, it gets complex with complex scenarios and if you want
it
> to ..., but help is readily available, just ask the guys ! One thing you
will
> have perhaps to do is to learn some perl, C, php, python or tlc/tk etc. in
> order to make your backend available to your clients. I'd prefer some GUI
via
> 'www', then you have an interface that is platform-independent, all your
> clients need is a connection and a browser. And how fast can you move your
> entire db-system to another machine ? With a couple of commands and file
> transfers ? Yes.
>
> > . How powerful is its internal language (we're quite spoiled here
working
> > with Oracle's PL/SQL which is very good...)
> >
> Hmm, very powerful I'd say, and just by reading this list, you learn a
lot.
>
> > . Is there any article or study done of PostgreSQL from an Oracle
> > background: ups and downs, surprises, diferences, important
> > considerations, etc...
> >
>
> Don't know, sorry, but the question has been asked now ?
>
> > . In what cases would it be recomendable and relatively riskless to
> > consider using PostgreSQL instead of Oracle, and, much more importantly,
in
> > which cases NOT.
> >
>
> Any and can't think of any. In a broader perspective, if you are willing
to
> take the responsibility to design and further develop a system that fits
your
> needs now and tomorrow you'll go PG and open source and if it fails
everyone
> laughs at your decision and you. You can also spend a small or bigger
fortune
> on a commercial system that does not really fit your needs or probably
> over-fits it by far and you do not have much control over, and if that
fails,
> it is not your responsibilty, but the big international vendor's and
nobody
> dares to laugh ... ( but really is laughing at both ? )
>
> > . It seems that documentation might be sparse. How confident can one be
of
> > obtaining technical knowledge of PostgreSQL without a very long trial
and
> > fail path? Are there books on it?
> >
>
> On-line docs, mailing lists, etc. for free. And good books, Bruce ? Trial
and
> fail is how one really learns. But again, with the help of others further
on
> the road you don't have to follow all the wrong paths.
>
> > . In the few mails that i have been checking, i saw a lot of thing with
> > which
> > i am not familiar, but... PostgreSQL is compliant with ANSI SQL, right?
> >
>
> And more.
>
> > . I've read an interview of Tom Lane where it comes out that PostgreSQL
> > came out to be faster than the other databases in some test. Anybody got
a
> > link to
> > that article? tests?
> >
> > . How efficient is PostgreSQL in terms of memory usage, queueing and all
> > these elaborated but useful (usually) things that show up inevitably in
> > high end products (like Oracle). (that could be rephrased as, "how not
so
> > basic is PostgreSQL?"
> >
> > etc...
>
> Tom's territory ? "Hardware is the limit".
>
> >
> > I guess you see the picture.
> >
>
> Yes, have no fear !
>
> > At present all the development i am in charge of relies heavily on
Oracle's
> > PL/SQL, but with the new ages coming up of having several tiers, and the
> > evergrowing needs for computing resources in front of the shrinking
budgets
> > of struggling economies, this is something i would reconsider.
PostgreSQL
> > places itself like a potential alternative to the oficial great actual
> > players, but it is really hard to trust anybody's speech right out. The
> > truth normally lies in many more details, known to the experienced
> > practicioners. I hope to be able to gather some impresions here
> >
>
> Shrinking budgets and resources, yes. So why waste money on a huge and
clumsy
> system that messes-up things all by itself and eats up all resources just
to
> keep itself running ? Repairing calls for out-of-town consultants, who
come
> in, do their thing and vanish before you can say do-re-mi in swahili.
> Something like 600 USD per hour ... And initial cost ? Tons of money for a
> pile of installation cds and nothing else. Maybe a manual and contact
numbers
> for the consultants.
>
> > Thanks everybody.
>
> This might sound like a bit of propaganda here, but having seen 'the
light', I
> am quite enthusiastic about it.
>
> And please see:
>
> http://www.mslinux.org
>
> A little humour and rumour ...
>
> Best regards,
>
> aarni
>
> >
> > Alain Gougeon
> > La Paz, Bolivia.
> >
> >
> >
> >
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