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Facebook Trapped In MySQL a 'Fate Worse Than Death'

wasimkadak writes with this excerpt from GigaOM: "According to database pioneer Michael Stonebraker, Facebook is operating a huge, complex MySQL implementation equivalent to 'a fate worse than death,' and the only way out is 'bite the bullet and rewrite everything.' Not that it's necessarily Facebook's fault, though. Stonebraker says the social network's predicament is all too common among web startups that start small and grow to epic proportions."

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  1. Delusional editorialism! by GooberToo · · Score: 1, Troll

    Not that it's necessarily Facebook's fault

    Absolute bullshit. So now people are no longer responsible for the decisions they made? Of course they are.

    It has been long known MySQL is a low end, non-compliant (slightly better over the years) solution, which teaches poor SQL, poor solutions, and even worse design, generally aimed at people who don't know any better. When MySQL launched, PostgreSQL was always an option. Furthermore, Oracle even had solutions for them to grow into. Now, both solutions look dramatically better than MySQL ever has. Furthermore, commercial support and even very high end HA/clustering PostgreSQL solutions are available. There exists no valid reason to make the same dumb mistake hundreds repeatedly make every day.

    So hurray for MySQL. They saved 45-minutes during their installation on day one and now they'll spend a year or two plus millions of dollars to move away from their extremely dumb and uneducated decision. That's got to be one of the most expensive 45-minutes on earth - and yet its one of the single biggest decisions which MySQL users defend on a daily basis.

    Sorry, but reality has spoken. Is it Facebook's fault? Absolutely!!!! Anyone who says otherwise has lost any and all credibility and only enforces they should never be in a position to be picking a database solution in the first place.