Re: What can we learn from MySQL?

> One common thing people talk about is ease of use. However that puzzles
> me, since it takes all of (about) three commands to install postgresql
> and log into the database for the first time. I use debian, so it
> amounts to "apt-get install", su to "postgres" and "psql template1".

My present theory is that most users make the decision regarding ease of
use before even installing the software.

If you look at the MySQL website within 1 or 2 clicks, you know that
there is a gui for queries, a gui for administration, drivers or
interfaces for many programming langauges. They have GIS, Unicode, full
text searching, multi-master replication, ANSI compliance, etc.

Not that all of those items are necessarily true, but that is what the
user believes.

In contrast, from the PostgresSQL website I know PostgreSQL can deal
with a large dataset, has lots of backend features, supports many
languages. Looking hard enough you might find a link to the
pgreplication which currently has the goal of integrating with
PostgreSQL 7.2 ;)

You don't learn anything about the GUIs (any of them) within the first
couple of clicks. Since many users (even linux users) associate command
lines with difficulty of use, the first impression is that PostgreSQL is
difficult to use.