Re: Are you frustrated with PostgreSQL

Glad to hear you are checking out PG Terence. This is one time where walking
towards the light is good.

I'll answer your questions below. I own an IT consulting company and do most of
the application development when it comes to projects that are going to call for
a backend database. My application environment is what I've saw someone once
describe as a "Brighter LAMP"- that is to say,
Linux-Apache-Middleware-PostgreSQL. My middleware is almost always Perl.

Quoting Terence Chang <TChang(at)nqueue(dot)com>:

> Hi all:
>
> I am new to PostgreSQL DB, however I have years experience with Oracle 8i
> and MS SQL. I am in the process to promot PostgreSQL to my future client,
> due to the cost. I am just wondering if overall people feels frustrated with
> PostgreSQL or feels happey with it.
>
> I know MySQL is simpiler and cheap. With my years experience with enterprise
> level DB like Oracle and MS SQL, I just don't feel right with MySQL. I love
> stored procedure. Sorry to MySQL lovers.
>
> I have the following questions. Please reply me offline, so the mailling
> list won't get flood. Thanks!
> 1. What is your favorite GUI tool for PostgreSQL?

I don't really don't use GUI tools that much but if I do its pgaccess. When I'm
on Windows (where I try not to go) I've been using pgAdminII. I've tried out
DBTools and PDAdmin as well

> 2. In your organization, do you have someone who works as full time
> PostgreSQL DBA?

We're actually all consultants so we all do DB work. Once a project is
deployed, you'd certainly be playing the part of admin but not only admin.

> 3. What is the biggest challenge you have with PostgreSQL? Administration or
> Programming?

Neither for me- I'm been programming for 20 years in various languages but these
days I pretty much stick with Perl. I don't consider myself a great programmer
so the fact that I have not had "programming" issues to me speaks to the fact
that the documentation for the pl's (pl/pgsql, pl/perl, etc) is good enough to
get you going. There are always this lists as well.

As far as administration I think you'd have to be more specific because
different systems have different needs when you get into product specifics.
Once of the think I LOVE of PG is that I don't have really do exotic to make
sure if ok. In all fairness tho, must of our client aren't doing anything that
is specialized enough to warrant a custom deployment.

> 4. Overall, do you like PostgreSQL? Would you recommend it over MySQL?

Without a doubt I'm a PG fan. Been using since the 6.x days and even back then
eventually I told our consultant we were going to be dumping MySQL from the servers.

My concerns are data integrity & security, scalability, transactability and of
course stored procedures. The consulting app for my company was home on PG
dates back in the late '90's and other then PG's growing pains as a product,
I've never had a problem with something breaking beyond repair. I have an
e-communities site called Virtual Vibe (http://www.virtualvibe.net) that I
designed whose EIS is entirely in PG. That includes the ad schedule and user
authentication (which acutally was the hardest thing I had to do but it was a
Mod_Perl/Apache integration issues).

> 5. How often do your PostgreSQL run into problem or crash? Are most of the
> problem caused by PostgreSQL itself?

I honestly can say I do not remember any times when the database itself
"crashed" and I had to go to tape for the data. In 5 years I think I've had to
restart PG on 2 different apps. That I'm going to attribute to me not having
the proper tuning.

Hope this help...

--
Keith C. Perry
Director of Networks & Applications
VCSN, Inc.
http://vcsn.com

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