It does mean nothing to say that 'MySQL is significantly faster than Oracle'. In what context? What exactly is faster with MySQL?
In my experience it is true that MySQL is fast for those really simple 'select my_column from my_table where primary_key=1' type of queries.
In the below situations, most other products (PostgreSQL, Oracle, Mimer SQL, or whatever) performs better than MySQL:
- More than a few simultaneous users.
- More complicated queries.
- Database is occasionally updated.
It is irrelevant to claim that MySQL performs better in this and that situations because of its lack of transactional support. Most other products supports different flavors of transactions, or even running without transactions, just like MySQL does. If you want to compare Oracle and MySQL you should compare with MySQL:s transaction tables or use the lowest possible transaction isolation provided by Oracle.
Re:Lets see if they get it right this time
on
MySQL 4.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
Just as a side note. There is a proposal to include the LIMIT clause in the next SQL-standard, scheduled for release in 2002.
But really, is it needed? I think not. You can express the same thing using already existing SQL grammar, which provides a more generic functionality. The problem is that the straight-forward query plan for that construct is very inefficient and no vendor has bothered to implement a good enough SQL-optimizer for that.
By implementing a LIMIT-clause they place the burden on the programmer instead.
The US standpoint in the Israel conflict is definately a contributing factor. Even though it is true that the US is today supporting other parties in the conflict, like the Palestinians, earlier achievements are not easily forgotten.
I could point at a few other areas where US behavior irritates other parts of the world, not only the arab countries. The US environmental policies for example. The USA have always been in debt to the UN, for another one. USA is the major weapons exporter in the world, for a third one.
It is not always about the big things. My impression is that the US troops on UN-peace missions many times is making things worse, or at least only conservating the conflict. I happen to have a colleague who served as an interpretator during the UN-mission in Yugoslavia a few years back. According to him, whenever a conflict situation appeared the US troops went in with the "if you don't do as we say we have the helicopters and airplanes waiting for you..."-approach. Whoever sittting on the other side of the negotiation table may accept the terms but only because the real problem is buried under the threat.
The same thing appears to be going on in Afghanistan, but on the larger scale. Bombing Bin Laden or the Talibans out of Afghanistan will not improve things.
But no matter why some people dislike the United States that should be a major concern of the US government and the American people. I think one should compare this to a commercial company. I think the Coca-Cola Company would _never_ accept that people for some reason hate the company or the brand. If they found a large part of the worlds population didn't like or hated Coca-Cola they would certainly try to do something about it.
I see little or no attempts from the US government to make the USA and their culture better liked in the world. The United States government should hire a couple, or maybe a dozen or so, Public Relations experts to figure out how to make the rest of the world like them better. If the US way of life is going to prevale, all people of the world must be treated like potential customers. And remember, the customer is always right!
I have heard Coca-Cola spend 25% of their revenue on PR. How much effort is the United States spending???
This is really not about the main subject, but I cannot resist.
The reason to why Bin Laden and others don't like or even hate the United States is without a doubt the US foreign policy. It has _nothing_ to do with how people live in the United States or how successful the United States way of life is.
Looking at politics and diplomatics throughout the world in recent decades it is overwhelming how little the US has made for people, particularly in the third world which are the of majority, to like them. For most people in the world, the first thing they learn about the United States is not about Coca-Cola, Hollywood movies or McDonalds, because those things don't exist for them. They have a hard time just getting enough to eat for the day! What really exist in their lives is US weapons. Bombs, hand-guns, grenades, airplanes, helicopters, you name it, which are manufactured in the United States, and sold or given without scrutiny to regimes throughout the world. These days weapons are mostly used on civilians so every time someone is killed with US weapons, anger and frustration is created and fostered around the world. Bombing Bin Laden out of Afghanistan will only make things worse.
The United States have also, through the years to a lesser extent than most other countries paid attention to international agreements and treaties. To start with, the US have always been in debt to the UN, they have _never_ paid attention to the environmental efforts of the rest of the world.
The United States government should hire one, or maybe a dozen or so, Public Relations experts to figure out how to make the rest of the world like them. If the US way of life is going to prevale, all people of the world must be treated like potential customers. And remember, the customer is always right!
I have heard Coca-Cola spend 25% of their revenue on PR. How much is the United States spending???
Often when reading posts I get the impression that the DBMS choices are OSS or Oracle (or perhaps DB2). That is far from the reality, there are dozens of other products that will provide a better scalability than most OSS-products but still don't cash in on a well-known brand name.
I name two of them for you, Clustra (http://www.clustra.com) and Mimer SQL (http://www.mimer.com).
No matter how little Red Hat, Nusphere and others charge for open source RDBMS licences the author ignores the most important aspect, standardization. Do the vendor really implement the official SQL standard? My experience is that this is so much more important than if the product is open source or not. Most products are terrible in this aspect, both open source and commercial products.
Why is this so important? Most systems are far more expensive to develop and maintain than to actually purchasing the RDBMS licence. An application built on non-standard features will inevitably becomae more expensive to maintain in the future since it becomes hard to switch RDBMS product if you for some reason become unhappy with the one you have used so far.
If RDBMS software were interchangeable we would really reap the benefits of market economy. We would see a real competition situation between vendors (and open source projects as well). Today, we live in a monopoly situation in which a majority of the applications out there only works with one RDBMS brand. Of course, the same situation exists in operating systems, that is why both Oracle and Microsoft are making so much money.
Again and again we are met with various statements about the progress and superiority about Open Source. In reality however, the question of open source is irrelevant.
Most users don't care if they have access to the source code or not. Granted, myself being a die hard programmer, rarely reads the source code of open source software. I simply don't have the time, and I guess most other users don't have either. People want to concentrate on their major business issue, and making software to support that is not within the scope of their interests.
What people _really_ want is standardized software. We computer users want software that implement standardized languages and protocols. In my experience, Open Source projects aren't implementing open standards any better than commaercial companies. In some cases, even Microsoft implements standards better than the Open Source community does, the worst example I know being MySQL.
If we customers started demanding software that adheres to open standards more than we do to today, the world economy will experience better competition between software companies. The profitability of Microsoft and Oracle will drop since alternatives are available. All in all, the benefits of standardized software is about the same as Open Source is marketed for.
No! Microsoft versus Unix is irrelevant. The *real* question is proprietary versus standardized systems. It is perfectly ok to invest in closed-source systems as long as they implement open _standards_ well.
Some open source systems really lock their users to their systems just as Microsoft does! For one thing, MS SQL Server is better at implementing SQL-92 than MySQL is.
The key variable to a good investment decision is therefore not if it is open source or not. All those Fortune 500 companies should start using standardized systems to lower ownership costs. Using standardized systems will increase market competitiveness since it will be easier to change vendor if the customer in the future becomes unhappy with support, pricing, upgrades etc.
I think the question of open-source versus closed-source is irrelevant. What the world really needs to improve is competition, just like Xunker writes. Unfortunately, few ventures (regardless if they are open- or closed-source) encourage competitors to compete with them. Most products are not interoperable enough with other products. They almost always find their own way of solving problems.
Either, there is no standard in that particular field or the product simply does not follow the standard.
Since we are talking about Microsoft, it is a basic strategy for them to have their customers locked onto their products to limit competition. But even open-source products is poor at following standards. One example which I know well is MySQL.
Now guys. Stop battering Microsoft, and start thinking about ways to improve competition in this world. For starters, start looking at products that follow standards.
Open source or not has NOTHING to do with long term product improvement.
The debate between Microsoft and the open source community is really about the wrong things. For most users, the don't care about 'freedom' or what methodology is used to develop their software. They want software that will do the job for them.
Even if most software users aren't aware of it, what they really need is software that adheres to open standards. Few software packages do that today, even in the open source community. For example, MySQL is terrible at implementing the SQL standard. MySQL may be the worst example I can come up with, but my feeling is that the major WWW-Browser (Netscape Navigator) does not implement standards well either (but my major area of expertise is databases so I may be wrong about Netscape).
Even though the open source community is performing badly regarding this, Microsoft (and most other major commerical software companies) are even more worse, just like posters have concluded.
If I were to base an application on either MySQL, MS SQL Server, Oracle or some other product that is bad at implementing the SQL standard, I will stand the risk at sometime in the future rewrite parts of the application if I have to change database product. This is the case no matter if it is open source, a commercial product or if I developed the database layer myself.
Standardization is SO important for software users. It is far more important than the question if it is open source, 'shared source' or whatever. It is sad that few customers realize that.
Slashdot Mirror
It does mean nothing to say that 'MySQL is significantly faster than Oracle'. In what context? What exactly is faster with MySQL?
In my experience it is true that MySQL is fast for those really simple 'select my_column from my_table where primary_key=1' type of queries.
In the below situations, most other products (PostgreSQL, Oracle, Mimer SQL, or whatever) performs better than MySQL:
- More than a few simultaneous users.
- More complicated queries.
- Database is occasionally updated.
It is irrelevant to claim that MySQL performs better in this and that situations because of its lack of transactional support. Most other products supports different flavors of transactions, or even running without transactions, just like MySQL does. If you want to compare Oracle and MySQL you should compare with MySQL:s transaction tables or use the lowest possible transaction isolation provided by Oracle.
Just as a side note. There is a proposal to include the LIMIT clause in the next SQL-standard, scheduled for release in 2002.
But really, is it needed? I think not. You can express the same thing using already existing SQL grammar, which provides a more generic functionality. The problem is that the straight-forward query plan for that construct is very inefficient and no vendor has bothered to implement a good enough SQL-optimizer for that.
By implementing a LIMIT-clause they place the burden on the programmer instead.
The US standpoint in the Israel conflict is definately a contributing factor. Even though it is true that the US is today supporting other parties in the conflict, like the Palestinians, earlier achievements are not easily forgotten.
I could point at a few other areas where US behavior irritates other parts of the world, not only the arab countries. The US environmental policies for example. The USA have always been in debt to the UN, for another one. USA is the major weapons exporter in the world, for a third one.
It is not always about the big things. My impression is that the US troops on UN-peace missions many times is making things worse, or at least only conservating the conflict. I happen to have a colleague who served as an interpretator during the UN-mission in Yugoslavia a few years back. According to him, whenever a conflict situation appeared the US troops went in with the "if you don't do as we say we have the helicopters and airplanes waiting for you..."-approach. Whoever sittting on the other side of the negotiation table may accept the terms but only because the real problem is buried under the threat.
The same thing appears to be going on in Afghanistan, but on the larger scale. Bombing Bin Laden or the Talibans out of Afghanistan will not improve things.
But no matter why some people dislike the United States that should be a major concern of the US government and the American people. I think one should compare this to a commercial company. I think the Coca-Cola Company would _never_ accept that people for some reason hate the company or the brand. If they found a large part of the worlds population didn't like or hated Coca-Cola they would certainly try to do something about it.
I see little or no attempts from the US government to make the USA and their culture better liked in the world. The United States government should hire a couple, or maybe a dozen or so, Public Relations experts to figure out how to make the rest of the world like them better. If the US way of life is going to prevale, all people of the world must be treated like potential customers. And remember, the customer is always right!
I have heard Coca-Cola spend 25% of their revenue on PR. How much effort is the United States spending???
This is really not about the main subject, but I cannot resist.
The reason to why Bin Laden and others don't like or even hate the United States is without a doubt the US foreign policy. It has _nothing_ to do with how people live in the United States or how successful the United States way of life is.
Looking at politics and diplomatics throughout the world in recent decades it is overwhelming how little the US has made for people, particularly in the third world which are the of majority, to like them. For most people in the world, the first thing they learn about the United States is not about Coca-Cola, Hollywood movies or McDonalds, because those things don't exist for them. They have a hard time just getting enough to eat for the day! What really exist in their lives is US weapons. Bombs, hand-guns, grenades, airplanes, helicopters, you name it, which are manufactured in the United States, and sold or given without scrutiny to regimes throughout the world. These days weapons are mostly used on civilians so every time someone is killed with US weapons, anger and frustration is created and fostered around the world. Bombing Bin Laden out of Afghanistan will only make things worse.
The United States have also, through the years to a lesser extent than most other countries paid attention to international agreements and treaties. To start with, the US have always been in debt to the UN, they have _never_ paid attention to the environmental efforts of the rest of the world.
The United States government should hire one, or maybe a dozen or so, Public Relations experts to figure out how to make the rest of the world like them. If the US way of life is going to prevale, all people of the world must be treated like potential customers. And remember, the customer is always right!
I have heard Coca-Cola spend 25% of their revenue on PR. How much is the United States spending???
Often when reading posts I get the impression that the DBMS choices are OSS or Oracle (or perhaps DB2). That is far from the reality, there are dozens of other products that will provide a better scalability than most OSS-products but still don't cash in on a well-known brand name.
I name two of them for you, Clustra (http://www.clustra.com) and Mimer SQL (http://www.mimer.com).
No matter how little Red Hat, Nusphere and others charge for open source RDBMS licences the author ignores the most important aspect, standardization. Do the vendor really implement the official SQL standard? My experience is that this is so much more important than if the product is open source or not. Most products are terrible in this aspect, both open source and commercial products.
Why is this so important? Most systems are far more expensive to develop and maintain than to actually purchasing the RDBMS licence. An application built on non-standard features will inevitably becomae more expensive to maintain in the future since it becomes hard to switch RDBMS product if you for some reason become unhappy with the one you have used so far.
If RDBMS software were interchangeable we would really reap the benefits of market economy. We would see a real competition situation between vendors (and open source projects as well). Today, we live in a monopoly situation in which a majority of the applications out there only works with one RDBMS brand. Of course, the same situation exists in operating systems, that is why both Oracle and Microsoft are making so much money.
Again and again we are met with various statements about the progress and superiority about Open Source. In reality however, the question of open source is irrelevant.
Most users don't care if they have access to the source code or not. Granted, myself being a die hard programmer, rarely reads the source code of open source software. I simply don't have the time, and I guess most other users don't have either. People want to concentrate on their major business issue, and making software to support that is not within the scope of their interests.
What people _really_ want is standardized software. We computer users want software that implement standardized languages and protocols. In my experience, Open Source projects aren't implementing open standards any better than commaercial companies. In some cases, even Microsoft implements standards better than the Open Source community does, the worst example I know being MySQL.
If we customers started demanding software that adheres to open standards more than we do to today, the world economy will experience better competition between software companies. The profitability of Microsoft and Oracle will drop since alternatives are available. All in all, the benefits of standardized software is about the same as Open Source is marketed for.
It is all up to us customers.
No! Microsoft versus Unix is irrelevant. The *real* question is proprietary versus standardized systems. It is perfectly ok to invest in closed-source systems as long as they implement open _standards_ well.
Some open source systems really lock their users to their systems just as Microsoft does! For one thing, MS SQL Server is better at implementing SQL-92 than MySQL is.
The key variable to a good investment decision is therefore not if it is open source or not. All those Fortune 500 companies should start using standardized systems to lower ownership costs. Using standardized systems will increase market competitiveness since it will be easier to change vendor if the customer in the future becomes unhappy with support, pricing, upgrades etc.
I think the question of open-source versus closed-source is irrelevant. What the world really needs to improve is competition, just like Xunker writes. Unfortunately, few ventures (regardless if they are open- or closed-source) encourage competitors to compete with them. Most products are not interoperable enough with other products. They almost always find their own way of solving problems.
Either, there is no standard in that particular field or the product simply does not follow the standard.
Since we are talking about Microsoft, it is a basic strategy for them to have their customers locked onto their products to limit competition. But even open-source products is poor at following standards. One example which I know well is MySQL.
Now guys. Stop battering Microsoft, and start thinking about ways to improve competition in this world. For starters, start looking at products that follow standards.
Open source or not has NOTHING to do with long term product improvement.
The debate between Microsoft and the open source community is really about the wrong things. For most users, the don't care about 'freedom' or what methodology is used to develop their software. They want software that will do the job for them. Even if most software users aren't aware of it, what they really need is software that adheres to open standards. Few software packages do that today, even in the open source community. For example, MySQL is terrible at implementing the SQL standard. MySQL may be the worst example I can come up with, but my feeling is that the major WWW-Browser (Netscape Navigator) does not implement standards well either (but my major area of expertise is databases so I may be wrong about Netscape). Even though the open source community is performing badly regarding this, Microsoft (and most other major commerical software companies) are even more worse, just like posters have concluded. If I were to base an application on either MySQL, MS SQL Server, Oracle or some other product that is bad at implementing the SQL standard, I will stand the risk at sometime in the future rewrite parts of the application if I have to change database product. This is the case no matter if it is open source, a commercial product or if I developed the database layer myself. Standardization is SO important for software users. It is far more important than the question if it is open source, 'shared source' or whatever. It is sad that few customers realize that.