You miss the point again. Most people who buy Oracle don't need Oracle. Yes, if MySQL was to try to compete with Oracle head-to-head in the small niche where Oracle is needed then MySQL would have no chance, because it doesn't meet the requirements of that niche. But that niche is enormously smaller than Oracle's market. Simply put, there are a lot of applications for which Oracle is used that would be just as well serviced by MySQL. And that is where MySQL can compete with Oracle.
Additionally, I fail to see how seeking cost effective products that fit needs is ever "missing the point".
What's your point? We're talking about MySQL. As it so happens I use Windows for my workstation machines. Because, in my experience, it is generally the best tool for the job.
It is you who demonstrate your cluelessness. Products are used for purposes. If a product can fulfill the purpose it is used for then it is a useful product. End of story.
Your argument is equivalent to saying that compact cars are useless, that they cannot transport people from one place to another because they have no 4 wheel drive, no turbo charger, no chrome plated cup holders, no automatic headlight wipers, no 6 disc CD changer. Such an argument is, of course, patently idiotic. Whether a feature is necessary or unnecessary is determined by use, not by design. If a feature is not used then it is, by definition, unnecessary. Unused, nnecessary features do not make a product better. Comprende?
Guess what smart guy, not every use of database functionality requires the utmost in database technology. MySQL does have many shortcomings in some areas as a database, but it also has many assets. There is a very large number of, as it turns out, very common database needs that do not require databases more sophisticated than MySQL. MySQL's robust basic feature set, good basic performance characteristics, and low TCO make it a perfect match for a nearly endless list of applications.
No, using MySQL in a situation where MySQL is a perfectly suitable choice is not ignorant, it is common sense and good business sense besides. Using a product that is massive overkill and that is vastly more expensive when MySQL would have worked fine is, however, grossly ignorant and a display of very poor business sense.
Yeah, I'd like to see them try to blow it up. It would be amusing. Do you think they ship nuclear waste on the interstate highway system inside carboard boxes or plastic buckets? Apply a little critical thinking, perhaps even use that research tool that everyone's talking about, "the internet", to get some real information. Nuclear waste is transported in "casks" that are incredibly strong.
Check this out. That's what casks have to be able to survive, an excerpt:
- a 30-foot free fall onto an unyielding surface, landing on the cask's weakest point, which would be equivalent to a crash at 120 miles per hour into a concrete bridge abutment; - a puncture test, during which the container must fall 40 inches onto a steel rod six inches in diameter; - a 30-minute exposure to fire at 1,475 degrees Fahrenheit that engulfs the entire container; and - submergence of the same container under three feet of water.
To achieve certification, a cask must prevent harmful release of radioactive material even when subjected to each of these tests.
Convoys transporting radioactive materials have been in several accidents over the years and in none of them has radioactive material been released. The casks they use for transport are stronger than a main battle tank. Terrorists would nearly need a nuclear weapon to crack one open.
Worrying about a boogie man under your bed is more rational than worrying about terrorists obtaining (or releasing) radioactive material from these convoys.
We have a metric standard of time, the second. Hours, minutes, days, etc. are all metric derived, the second is the only metric unit. Odd then that this wacko decides to base his system on the day and then work backward to destroy the second as a standard of time. Good work bucko, if your system gets adopted it will be fractionally more convenient to translate between different time units. Oh, but on the plus side it will also mean that all our current devices, measurements, etc. that use the current SI second in any way will have to be completely redesigned and replaced. Which means billions of useless dollars to change from one type of second to another, plus all the confusion as the system switches over.
Meanwhile back in reality we have a metric unit of time, as mentioned above. The one thing we do not have is a metric measure of "absolute time". Disregarding complications from general relativity for the moment, all that requires is a standardized point of reference (such as Jan 1, 1970). This is a problem that really does not need a solution. Especially a "solution" that is completely broken.
This is just outright rediculous. The concept that copyright protection does not protect beyond the right of first sale has been upheld by the courts innumerable times over a *very* long period. Are there no bounds to the avarice of media publishers? I guess this is the final proof that the answer is a definitive no.
What's next? Will they demand royalties from people who listen to music on the radio? Overheard music from neighbors? Will they charge royalties for singing along or humming to a song? This is just fucking rediculous. We have to put a stop to this crap before they abolish all the rights of media consumers.
I don't care how ugly $, @, etc. looks I'm damn glad Perl, PHP, and friends use special characters to dilineate variables! When you scan through code in something like C often times it's not so easy to figure out just what's what, what's a function, what's a variable, what's some gawdawful clever #define dohicky, etc. I'll take ugly and understandable over pretty and incomprehensible any day.
This should be really simple. Microsoft has already said itself that some of its code is so broken and vulnerable that it would endanger national security to reveal the source. Now, given the option of going with A) open source code you can review yourself (and believe me, a government has the resources to do a fairly complete critical review of all the code they need) or B) code you know is insecure and that comes with zero guarantees about that level of insecurity, the choice is so blindingly obvious it doesn't need further explication. Heck, even after a patch, upgrade, version change, complete code rewrite, whatever, without the code you're still going on MS's word as to whether it's really secure or not. Considering their track record, I wouldn't trust 'em.
No, this is a lesson in documention. The password should be documented, and kept in a safe place. Hmmm, I wonder what a good way to do that would be. How about written down and put inside a safe? This is hardly rocket science here.
I guess someone forgot that long before windows ever existed old school operating systems like unix and vms were being "haxored" like there was no tomorrow. Don't forget that the big, bad Morris worm of 19 friggin' 88 was an exploit of BSD unix. The reason MS software is the punching bag these days is largely because 1) unix has had time to mature and correct its mistakes, 2) the concept of a windows system administrator is pretty much laughable and windows services are just about written with that in mind (IIS is pretty much designed to be administerable by brain-dead monkies, for example), and 3) microsoft's iron grip monopoly hold on a few areas (workstation OS's) has made it complacent when it comes to quality and security.
Regardless, unix never was and is not currently invulnerable to these kinds of attacks. The major reason why the vulnerabilities of unix systems and related software has not received much publicity (or much concentration of effort from "hackers") is because, as in the wild, it is simply so much easier to pray on the diseased and enfeebled.
You must have a very odd notion of what a "small town" is. I've lived in a fair variety of cities of varying sizes including cities with hundreds of thousands of people in them. Even the ones with really, really good top notch used bookstores have inferior selections compared to what's available (for virtually the same price) on the internet. And in really small towns with crappy bookstores (and, rest assured, there are many such towns) the book selection is just downright lousy.
Maybe if you're one of them Joe's who doesn't read much or who reads only pop literature it's easy to find plenty of the few books you read at any bookstore. But if you have less mainstream interests then you're more likely to be dissapointed. Pick any semi-popular scifi/fantasy series then pick some random sub 200,000 pop. city in the US and try to find all the books in that series in used bookstores in that city. More likely than not such an endeavour will result in either failure or a huge pain in the ass. I currently live in a town with a population of about 160,000 and just the other day I searched through 3 used book stores and could not find one copy of anything by Vernor Vinge. But there are a kajillion copies of all his books available online, each (used) for around 3 to 4 bucks.
Just like all other last-mile broadband solutions it has some major disadvantages. Such as: 1) snow and heavy rain = no link, 2) limited to line of sight only (most cities are semi-flat so this is a real problem), 3) infrastructure needs to be built. Unless there is some better way to do the antennae at both ends, especially at the upstream link, this is not even remotely a viable solution. Right now every connection would require it's own medium gain antenna (even if it is only an inexpensive can) which needs to be mounted with a line of sight to the home / biz and needs to be connected to the POP. As in the bad old days of the telephone when each line required its own wire you can see that this kind of situation rapidly deteriorates into insanity (imagine the necessary thousands or tens of thousands of antennae on the roof of the ISP). Other methods might be possible, but then you move away from the "off the shelf cheap solution".
Bill Gates is actually an excellent case of how things should be done. Check the MSFT annual report, his salary + bonuses is only a few hundred Gs. His vast fortune comes from his ownership of a large chunk of MS stock. If the company does bad and the stock takes a dive, bye bye billions.
Isn't that a bit overkill tech-wise for a task that could probably be performed by a cheap programmable timer (such as this one, for 9 bucks)? Especially since low tech programmable timers tend not to be vulnerable to slashdotting.
Slashdot Mirror
Additionally, I fail to see how seeking cost effective products that fit needs is ever "missing the point".
What's your point? We're talking about MySQL. As it so happens I use Windows for my workstation machines. Because, in my experience, it is generally the best tool for the job.
Your argument is equivalent to saying that compact cars are useless, that they cannot transport people from one place to another because they have no 4 wheel drive, no turbo charger, no chrome plated cup holders, no automatic headlight wipers, no 6 disc CD changer. Such an argument is, of course, patently idiotic. Whether a feature is necessary or unnecessary is determined by use, not by design. If a feature is not used then it is, by definition, unnecessary. Unused, nnecessary features do not make a product better. Comprende?
Guess what smart guy, not every use of database functionality requires the utmost in database technology. MySQL does have many shortcomings in some areas as a database, but it also has many assets. There is a very large number of, as it turns out, very common database needs that do not require databases more sophisticated than MySQL. MySQL's robust basic feature set, good basic performance characteristics, and low TCO make it a perfect match for a nearly endless list of applications.
No, using MySQL in a situation where MySQL is a perfectly suitable choice is not ignorant, it is common sense and good business sense besides. Using a product that is massive overkill and that is vastly more expensive when MySQL would have worked fine is, however, grossly ignorant and a display of very poor business sense.
Check this out. That's what casks have to be able to survive, an excerpt:
- a 30-foot free fall onto an unyielding surface, landing on the cask's weakest point, which would be equivalent to a crash at 120 miles per hour into a concrete bridge abutment;
- a puncture test, during which the container must fall 40 inches onto a steel rod six inches in diameter;
- a 30-minute exposure to fire at 1,475 degrees Fahrenheit that engulfs the entire container; and
- submergence of the same container under three feet of water.
To achieve certification, a cask must prevent harmful release of radioactive material even when subjected to each of these tests.
Convoys transporting radioactive materials have been in several accidents over the years and in none of them has radioactive material been released. The casks they use for transport are stronger than a main battle tank. Terrorists would nearly need a nuclear weapon to crack one open.
Worrying about a boogie man under your bed is more rational than worrying about terrorists obtaining (or releasing) radioactive material from these convoys.
We have a metric standard of time, the second. Hours, minutes, days, etc. are all metric derived, the second is the only metric unit. Odd then that this wacko decides to base his system on the day and then work backward to destroy the second as a standard of time. Good work bucko, if your system gets adopted it will be fractionally more convenient to translate between different time units. Oh, but on the plus side it will also mean that all our current devices, measurements, etc. that use the current SI second in any way will have to be completely redesigned and replaced. Which means billions of useless dollars to change from one type of second to another, plus all the confusion as the system switches over.
Meanwhile back in reality we have a metric unit of time, as mentioned above. The one thing we do not have is a metric measure of "absolute time". Disregarding complications from general relativity for the moment, all that requires is a standardized point of reference (such as Jan 1, 1970). This is a problem that really does not need a solution. Especially a "solution" that is completely broken.
This is just outright rediculous. The concept that copyright protection does not protect beyond the right of first sale has been upheld by the courts innumerable times over a *very* long period. Are there no bounds to the avarice of media publishers? I guess this is the final proof that the answer is a definitive no.
What's next? Will they demand royalties from people who listen to music on the radio? Overheard music from neighbors? Will they charge royalties for singing along or humming to a song? This is just fucking rediculous. We have to put a stop to this crap before they abolish all the rights of media consumers.
I don't care how ugly $, @, etc. looks I'm damn glad Perl, PHP, and friends use special characters to dilineate variables! When you scan through code in something like C often times it's not so easy to figure out just what's what, what's a function, what's a variable, what's some gawdawful clever #define dohicky, etc. I'll take ugly and understandable over pretty and incomprehensible any day.
This should be really simple. Microsoft has already said itself that some of its code is so broken and vulnerable that it would endanger national security to reveal the source. Now, given the option of going with A) open source code you can review yourself (and believe me, a government has the resources to do a fairly complete critical review of all the code they need) or B) code you know is insecure and that comes with zero guarantees about that level of insecurity, the choice is so blindingly obvious it doesn't need further explication. Heck, even after a patch, upgrade, version change, complete code rewrite, whatever, without the code you're still going on MS's word as to whether it's really secure or not. Considering their track record, I wouldn't trust 'em.
No, this is a lesson in documention. The password should be documented, and kept in a safe place. Hmmm, I wonder what a good way to do that would be. How about written down and put inside a safe? This is hardly rocket science here.
I guess someone forgot that long before windows ever existed old school operating systems like unix and vms were being "haxored" like there was no tomorrow. Don't forget that the big, bad Morris worm of 19 friggin' 88 was an exploit of BSD unix. The reason MS software is the punching bag these days is largely because 1) unix has had time to mature and correct its mistakes, 2) the concept of a windows system administrator is pretty much laughable and windows services are just about written with that in mind (IIS is pretty much designed to be administerable by brain-dead monkies, for example), and 3) microsoft's iron grip monopoly hold on a few areas (workstation OS's) has made it complacent when it comes to quality and security.
Regardless, unix never was and is not currently invulnerable to these kinds of attacks. The major reason why the vulnerabilities of unix systems and related software has not received much publicity (or much concentration of effort from "hackers") is because, as in the wild, it is simply so much easier to pray on the diseased and enfeebled.
You must have a very odd notion of what a "small town" is. I've lived in a fair variety of cities of varying sizes including cities with hundreds of thousands of people in them. Even the ones with really, really good top notch used bookstores have inferior selections compared to what's available (for virtually the same price) on the internet. And in really small towns with crappy bookstores (and, rest assured, there are many such towns) the book selection is just downright lousy.
Maybe if you're one of them Joe's who doesn't read much or who reads only pop literature it's easy to find plenty of the few books you read at any bookstore. But if you have less mainstream interests then you're more likely to be dissapointed. Pick any semi-popular scifi/fantasy series then pick some random sub 200,000 pop. city in the US and try to find all the books in that series in used bookstores in that city. More likely than not such an endeavour will result in either failure or a huge pain in the ass. I currently live in a town with a population of about 160,000 and just the other day I searched through 3 used book stores and could not find one copy of anything by Vernor Vinge. But there are a kajillion copies of all his books available online, each (used) for around 3 to 4 bucks.
Just like all other last-mile broadband solutions it has some major disadvantages. Such as: 1) snow and heavy rain = no link, 2) limited to line of sight only (most cities are semi-flat so this is a real problem), 3) infrastructure needs to be built. Unless there is some better way to do the antennae at both ends, especially at the upstream link, this is not even remotely a viable solution. Right now every connection would require it's own medium gain antenna (even if it is only an inexpensive can) which needs to be mounted with a line of sight to the home / biz and needs to be connected to the POP. As in the bad old days of the telephone when each line required its own wire you can see that this kind of situation rapidly deteriorates into insanity (imagine the necessary thousands or tens of thousands of antennae on the roof of the ISP). Other methods might be possible, but then you move away from the "off the shelf cheap solution".
Bill Gates is actually an excellent case of how things should be done. Check the MSFT annual report, his salary + bonuses is only a few hundred Gs. His vast fortune comes from his ownership of a large chunk of MS stock. If the company does bad and the stock takes a dive, bye bye billions.
Isn't that a bit overkill tech-wise for a task that could probably be performed by a cheap programmable timer (such as this one, for 9 bucks)? Especially since low tech programmable timers tend not to be vulnerable to slashdotting.