Re:PostgreSQL 9.0 Final Release Available Now
by kijinbear on Monday September 20, 2010 @11:30PM
(#1711358)
PostgreSQL forces you to write proper queries. MySQL is designed to accommodate lousy practices, and all those implicit type conversions and non-standard syntax will come back to bite you as a big WTF.
Other reasons I like PostgreSQL: more data types (MySQL doesn't even have a boolean type), partial indexing (a godsend when you have large tables), ability to use multiple indexes when querying, full-text search and ACID are not mutually exclusive, and multiple procedural languages.
[edit] Oops, didn't mean to make this a reply.
Re:PostgreSQL 9.0 Final Release Available Now
by prodigal_erik on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @12:55AM
(#1711528)
This. I was appalled when I realized that MySQL will quietly seem to execute
select x from y group by z
x isn't a grouping column or an aggregate function, so where does it get the value for each group? It just arbitrarily picks a value from one of the rows, even if the other rows had different values!
Now the tools are MUCH less friendly, but if you come from an Oracle (or probably DB2) world you'll be used to it. While they require more cryptic commands, they do work very well.
There is the replication thing. When we picked PostgreSQL back up this year to play with for a new little system, we discovered that they took one of the formerly external replication systems and it has been put into the tree. This is a very good step, as the replication situation was a big problem for us. Before there were little third party things (based on triggers) that you could take your chances with, and there were paid replication solutions. Having one built in is quite nice.