Re: 12 Silver Bullets

From: David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org>
To: Robert Treat <xzilla(at)users(dot)sourceforge(dot)net>
Cc: pgsql-advocacy(at)postgresql(dot)org, vincent <vinny(at)xs4all(dot)nl>
Subject: Re: 12 Silver Bullets
Date: 2007-08-16 16:49:31
Message-ID: 20070816164931.GE4277@fetter.org
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On Thu, Aug 16, 2007 at 11:47:12AM -0400, Robert Treat wrote:
> On Thursday 16 August 2007 03:46, vincent wrote:
> > > On Thu, 16 Aug 2007, Simon Riggs wrote:
> > >>> 2. Robust transactional ACID behavior under all circumstances
> > >>
> > >> Async commit changes that, since it relaxes the Durability
> > >> aspect.
> > >
> > > And one can wreak havoc right now if you turn fsync off. Maybe
> > > the wording may need to be tweaked here. The disclaimer in the
> > > detailed document is "barring hardware failure or grossly
> > > improper configuration". If you expected ACID, but used Async
> > > commit, that certainly falls into the improper configuration
> > > category.
> >
> > Does the reader really need to know so many details in a list like
> > this?
> >
> > PgSQL defaults to ACID, which is the point I'd like to make in a
> > list like this; the user does not have to do anything special to
> > get ACID, unlike some databases who shall rename nameless...
>
> The windows default table type for mysql is innodb, which is ACID.
> Since > 50% of thier users work on windows (perhaps not deploy, but
> do development/testing) this means that most of them are getting
> ACID out of the box as well.

Until they move to production on Linux, *BSD or Solaris, at which
point all the stuff that worked on the development boxes starts
breaking--silently, as characterizes MySQL--on prod boxes.

This qualifies, not as a "feature," but as a really severe gotcha.

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666
Skype: davidfetter

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