Re: Fwd: Re: enabling postgresql by default

On Tue, 2003-06-24 at 12:25, Joe Conway wrote:
> Josh Berkus wrote:
> >>If they want to level the playing field and not include anything I am
> >>fine with that, and I think we all could support that, but unless you
> >>think it is detrimental to postgresql for them to include static pgsql
> >>libs in php (which I do not) it seems we should lobby for them to put in
> >>postgresql libs over anything else.
> >
> >
> > mmmm ... one problem: No PostgreSQL for Windows, yet.
> >
> > A lot of PHP developers work on Windows ....
> >
>
> A few points:
>
> 1) WRT MySQL and Postgres, we're talking about the client library. The
> Postgres client library (libpq) does compile on Windows already (and has
> for several releases at least).
>

This would be a huge benefit for postgresql, as windows/php developers
would have a much easier time getting connections to postgresql servers.
Granted they'd still probably need a *nix server running, but it would
still be helpful for us.

> 2) The MySQL client library source code has been bundled in-total in PHP
> for a while now, which made enabling it by default practical. For them
> to do the same with Postgres, someone has to do the work to lift the
> client library code out of the Postgres source tree, and integrate it
> into the PHP source tree (assuming of course that the PHP group would
> allow it).
>
> 3) WRT sqlite, it is already bundled into PHP's source tree -- the
> entire thing, not just a client. In other words, enabling sqlite by
> default gives them a SQL interface to flat files, with no other
> dependencies (compared to MySQL and Postgres where you need the server
> installed somewhere for the client to be worth anything to you). This is
> useful in hosted environments where a database is either not offered or
> is offered at additional cost.
>

Didn't realize they had the whole thing already, it does change the
equation somewhat.

> My conclusions are:
> - By not enabling MySQL by default, the playing field *is* being leveled
> - Integrating sqlite in PHP makes a lot of sense from the standpoint of
> the PHP group, and doesn't offer any real competition to either MySQL
> or PostgreSQL. If anything it lowers the bar for new people to learn
> SQL, and eventually those same people will migrate up.
>

Maybe I'm selling sqlite short, but I've never cared for it myself.
Granted a full fledge rdbms is overkill for a lot of the web sites that
are out there, but I'd probably recommend folks use flat files...

If that's their final outcome we're certainly no worse off than we are
now.

Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL