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PostgreSQL 8.1 Available
atani writes "PostgreSQL 8.1 has been posted, though not officially announced as of this moment. This release includes two-phased commits, improved SMP and overall performance, a new role system replaces the older user/group, autovacuum is now within the backend rather than a separate contrib module, and various improvements, performance enhancements, and bugfixes. " You can also read the developer notes for the popular database. One thing is clear- with the newest Postresql and MySql, you have much to choose from.
I've tested RC1 with some applications, and was really impressed by the bitmap-indices. I hope to see soon a multi-master replication now that 2PC is available. I've heard Slony-2 will have it.
Found it!
/ is the link.
http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/binary/v8.1.0/win32
Clicking the '8.1' link on the 'new releases' section on the front page takes you to the 'source' files only. That was the problem I had!
creation science book
Just installed the Windows version. Just a quick couple notes here...
:)
1. Installer was seemingly faster than 8.0 version.
2. Installer could do a little bit better job of hiding all the 'options' (ISBN, Fuzzy search, etc) you can install. Put them behind an 'advanced' button or something - it's a little intimidating to see so many options at first. Also the PL language choices are odd - 'pl/Perl' and 'pl/Perl (untrusted)' ??? These are things that could probably be hidden from the majority of people just testing it out for the first time - either install everything by default, or nothing, but put some of these things behind 'advanced' tabs.
3. pgAdmin III bundled tool is 1.4 - I think I was using 1.3 last time I installed. Visually it looks a bit nicer - I'm assuming they've fixed some bugs or something similar to warrant a number change.
I'll probably get flamed for #2, but I'm just putting out some suggestions. The fact that there *is* a Windows installer at all is a good thing - I'd just like to see it improve to help reach a wider audience for future releases.
creation science book
They were probably waiting for their mirrors to finish syncing before some yo-yo posted to /. and caused every other yo-yo to start downloading.
Been using RC1/RC2 for some time now. I'm impressed with the role feature, although it won't add much to the average user. The speed has been night and day with 7.3. I also haven't had any problems with the RC's in the slightest except one: a renamed table then wouldn't let me delete the sequence it depended on after the renamed table was deleted. Apparently I wasn't the only one who found it and it has been reported as fixed, though who knows.
My only beef with PgSQL has been there since before the 7's. There is still no way to not show the list of databases to users who have no right or access to those databases. Why should userA with rights to databaseA see that there is a databaseB or databaseC? This really seems like a simple feature, yet nobody will accept it into the release.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
I've been running my Blastwave packages[1] of the betas and RCs since the first snapshots became available, and I've been massively impressed with this release. Moving autovacuum into the main package is a really nice touch - all you have to do now is uncomment a few lines in postgresql.conf and it handles it all for you.
:)
The new roles system is also amazingly useful. You can set up a range of roles with a variety of permissions, and then let users "assume" those roles. So you can log in with a day-to-day account, and when you need to do some admin work just SET ROLE [name of your super-user role] and then revert back once you're done. Great if you want to give a junior DBA the ability to create databases, but not the ability to modify other things (such as creating new roles).
Congratulations to the PostgreSQL team anyway - for doing things "the right way"
[1]=http://www.blastwave.org/testing/
sqlite is good. But it does require setup.
You still need to use CREATE TABLE, INSERTs and the like.
You need to connect to the thing in your code, with the same attendent problems as other connection strings. sqlite has a poor jdbc element, if java's your gig.
There are a couple of versions of sqlite. Be aware of this. There is sqlite and sqlite3. Note the jump there from 1 straight to 3. You'll need different DBD drivers there in Perl.
Also, there is no multiple write capability, so you have to synchrinise on this yourself. Who do you trust to write code for ACID commits? Yourself or say, the Postgres team?.
Where sqlite rocks is where the data is entirely read only, which eats out Mysqls lunch.
Also remember that sqlite and Postgres are not mutually exclusive.
In my sqlite setup, I deploy a sqlite database as a file for the fast read only webservers. Where is this data drawn from? My Postgres database with perl to generate the file. So you can get the UPDATE integrity of Postgres with the blazing speed and compactness of sqlite. This works where your application has discreet state where everything is consistent and you can batch update your sqlite.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Most handle it by giving you the view of the data before the other user started to modify it. The person who is editing's edits do not show until all of the edit is finished.
Postgres docs actually have a chapter on this: Concurrency Control. Like most high-end databases Postgres can handle this situation in different ways, depending on how it is set up...
A database should never tell you that the data is not avalible. It should always give you the best version of the data it has.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
Okay, I'm going to bite: what on earth does a red wheelbarrow have to do with databases?
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
Full text searching has existed for a number of years and is actively used by a few Russian search engines on large volumes of content (millions of text documents), among other places.
Take a peak in the contrib directory of the source tree for tsearch.
Documentation for TSearch
Rod Taylor
PostgreSQL is rock solid, and very extensible (user-defined aggregates, user-defined procedural languages, user defined functions, triggers, user defined types, table functions, and much more). It probably also performs better in many situations due, in part, to MS SQLs locking vs. PostgreSQL's MVCC.
However, there are more tools available for MS SQL, and there is some form of multi-master replication and probably better table partitioning. MS SQL is not really a bad database, but I think PostgreSQL has it beat except on those two points.
Any real performance analysis is heavily application dependent, however. If that's what you care about, you need to do your own tests.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Databases are often used for dead projects, buried under large mounds of data. The parallel would seem to be pretty exact.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
For those who really understand relational database design, there is nothing that object inheritance can represent that you can't handle relationally.
In fact, the PostgreSQL team has been musing for years on whether to drop object inheritance completely, because it just muddies the waters of relational design, and causes implementation details to affect logical design.
But interestingly, table inheritance has become a solution to a lower-level implementation problem: "horizontal" table partitioning. Using inheritance together with tablespaces (available since 8.0), you can break a large table into multiple subtables, each on a different physical storage device, then make a table that inherits from them all to present unified querying to the whole range of data. This is a *big* advantage for very large databases.
(Note - some content cross posted from the recent MSSQL2005 posting I made)
a ger [sqlmanager.net]
a ger [sqlmanager.net]
/ powerdesigner [sybase.com]
Q L%20GUI%20Tools/document_view [postgresql.org]
I take issue with the number of tools.
Postgresql has a great variety of tools, both OSS and commercial that work great. I've been working on an updated list of all the tools. Here are a few of the most popular admin tools:
PGadminIII
http://www.sqlmanager.net/products/postgresql/man
DBvisualizer
http://www.minq.se/products/dbvis/ [www.minq.se]
EMS Postgresql Manager
http://www.sqlmanager.net/products/postgresql/man
PHPpgadmin
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phppgadmin [sourceforge.net]
Sybase Power Designer
http://www.sybase.com/products/enterprisemodeling
ERWIN data modeller
http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Product.asp?ID=260 [ca.com]
CASE Studio 2
http://www.casestudio.com/enu/default.aspx [casestudio.com]
Postgresql has a vibrant tool community. If you want more info on Postgresql tools see
http://techdocs.postgresql.org/v2/Guides/PostgreS
Here's what I think he'll answer to your first question:
"
MySQL works fine on Slashdot. It has all the features and performance we need, it has been running flawlessly for years and we're already familiar with it, so why should we change to anything else? What makes you think there's a bullet that needs biting? Granted, PG looks neat and all, but why exchange a dollar for four quarters?
"
Here's what I think he'll answer to your second question:
"
MySQL 5 doesn't offer us any features we absolutely need (otherwise we'd be using PG, right?) We will upgrade eventually, but we have bigger fish to fry right now, and upgrading our database is not very imperative.
"
Something else he might say:
"
Running slashdot is not as simple as running a basement website that gets 3 hits per hour. Thought needs to be put into these decisions. We can't just run off and install something the day it's released.
"
- MySQL is very simple to learn
- MySQL is supported by virtually all webhosting companies, whereas you have to look pretty hard to find a host that provides PostgreSQL.
- MySQL historically has performed much better than Postgres for both reads and writes. Nowadays, MySQL only outperforms Postgres on reads. So for a website, where most database calls are SELECTs, MySQL will often (but not always) give better performance.
- Nearly all blog, forum, photo gallery, etc. packages support MySQL. They do not all support Postgres, but some do.
Now, of course, Postgres has many advantages over MySQL, but for a small hobby website, you should just use whatever you know best and your host supports and your software supports. The answer is normally MySQL for your type of website.Postgres is generally better than MySQL (though MySQL is closing the gap) in terms of SQL standards compliance and RDBMS-type features. If you're implementing a true DB app, you should definitely give PostgreSQL a second look. But for a web forum, stick with MySQL.
P.S. Did you go to Wisconsin?
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
1) It's free. SQL server costs 5000 per processor or 16,000 per processor depending on the version
2) It runs on every platform. SQL server only runs on windows. It's the only database in wisespread use that locks you to one operating system.
3) It has no limits on how much memory it uses. SQL server standard edition limits itself to 2 gigs as of SQL server 2K (don't know if they fixed that by now).
4) it supports text fields that are only limited by your OS and uses them extremely efficiently. These are not like SQL server blob fields but they are like HUGE text fields that can be indexed or used in aggregate functions.
5) It has user definable data types, user definable operators, user definable functions.
6) It can use perl, python, java, tcl or PG/Pqsl as it's stored procedure languages. YOu can also use C and even compile your C stored procs in with the server if you want super speed.
7) It has multi version concurrency control. This means readers never block writers, ever.
8) No lock escalation. SQL server users know the value of this, everybody else takes it for granted.
9) Lots of built in datatypes like arrays, IP address, geometric types, GIS types etc. Yes it's possible to write a query that asks "select all rectangles that contain this point" or "select all ip addresses in this address mask"
10) Support for hierarchies (in the contrib) so you can natually and intuitively model graphs without writing code or using complex self joins and such. Look up ltree.
11) A fantastic rule system. You can make anything look like a updateable recordset if you are willing to code it.
12) PostGIS.
I am just scratching the surface. I am sure I have missed some other features but that should whet you appetite.
evil is as evil does