Thank you! Finally, someone who knowns what they are talking about!
(btw - 7.1 has text-based indices, finer grained disk usage can be done with simlinks in the data directory, database can be backed up live [but not to my knowledge restored])
Anyone with even a scant knowledge of commercial database system should know
that comparing Oracle and DB2 with Postgres and MySql is comparing apples and oranges.
They are not even close to being in the same class. If you don't know why,
perhaps you should find out yourself.
Then why is it so hard for me to find someone who can tell me what makes Oracle better than Postgres?
Every time I ask someone what makes Oracle so much better they either say "Enterprise features!" and change the subject or say "Oracle has X!" making obvious their ignorance of Postgres since it has X too.
As of PostgreSQL 7.1 Oracle is not longer the faster of the two. Thanks to GreatBridge, Postgres has awesome support. Postgres now has all the foreign keys and inner and outer, left, right, up, and down joins. It has a data management layer where you can stick your indexes on a different spindle than your table. It has stored procedures and triggers. It has full transaction support and a write ahead log.
Come on! Will one of you Oracle advocates PLEASE tell me what the hell makes Oracle so damn good. I'm not trying to pick a flame war, I just want to know! Has Oracle really fallen so far behind that the only people who advocate it are those who are drinking too much of the Coolaid to form a real argument? There must be another reason people like it so much!
I am all ears. What has Oracle got that Postgres does not? The only thing I am aware of is the JVM built into the core of it and that it can be used as a versioning file system. Is there anything else?
I wish someone would PLEASE enlighten me as to what all these great secret enterprise features are that Oracle has that Postgres does not!
There was an
article here on slashdot that compared four different scripting languages. From the standpoint of speed PHP came in first. PHP has a reputation of being the fastest web scripting language and, to be honest, is a joy to program in as well. If this is not enough speed Zend sells a PHP cache that will precompile all your pages to speed things up even more. I believe there is a free version of the PHP cache out there but I don't know it by name.
And before you use MySQL please read this. MySQL has a reputation of being the fastest open source database but it really can't scale like Postgres can.
I tried to connect to the tradewars server and was presented with what I think was ANSI graphics. But this time, just like the last, I got only vt100 graphics. Does anyone out there know how to get ANSI graphics working under an xterm/telnet? Is linux limited to 7 bit ASCII?
Everyday it seems like Microsoft is doing more and more to dig it's own grave. It's still acting like it's the big dog in town and can just decide which standards it will choose to use and which it wont. The only two places java really matters is on servers and in browsers. And while they may own the browser market at the moment they cant NOT support it because Sun can just make a an ActiveX control that embeds it. But the DON'T own the server market, not even close. Their avarice will lead to their own extinction. It's only a matter of time.
It drives me crazy that people keep making hardgood theft analogies to IP theft. Be it napster or pirated windows, it's a different kind of stealing. When you steal a ford, it's gone. The dealer paid money for it and can't recover the costs because you are out joy riding in it. Secondly you never own softgoods, you just own the right to use/enjoy them.
A much better analogy would be to compare software piracy to photocopying a book at the library when no one is looking,
Fretting over one's CPU, if reliability is at stake, is a real waste of time. There are four high risk components in any computer.
The hard drive
The power supply
The CPU fan
The OS
Hard drives fail. Raid arrays and hot swap can reduce the danger here
Power supplies fail. Having redundant hot swappable power supplies are the only way to go
The CPU fan will eventually stop and you should have software monitoring this and reporting to you when it starts slowing down.
The OS is the most complex and error prone part of the system. It's very important to have a good one and very hard to find. Heck, that's why most of the people at this site are here. You won't find a slashdot site for power supplies or CPU fans.
If your hardware is going to fail the CPU is just as likely to blow as a network card or some RAM. It has no moving parts, just pushes electrons around the same way again and again and as long as its well cooled will give you no grief. As for CPU quirks, just about any CPU will have them. Once a CPU has had a few months to season it's bugs are either well known and the chip is avoided or fixed with a BIOS upgrade or OS patch (never to be an issue again). The Athlon is well seasoned and stable.
But honestly, if hundreds of thousands of dollars and people reputations are on the line there is no alternative but high availability clustering. None. Zero. Nada. It's even better if the nodes are in different time zones. So for Pete's sake, make a nice fast cluster of Athlon boxes with RAID 5 and three power supplies a piece running Linux or QNX. Then pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
"It's Microsoft's groundbreaking new technology that lets any language call objects written in any other language!"
"Wow! So what's DCOM?"
"It's Microsoft's groundbreaking new technology that lets any language call objects written in any other language over a network!"
"Wow! So what's ALT?"
"It's Microsoft's groundbreaking new technology that lets any language call objects written in any other language so you perform do automation!"
"Wow! So what's an OCX control?"
"It's Microsoft's groundbreaking new technology that lets any language call objects written in any other language through controls that can be manipulated with a GUI tool!"
"So, what's.NET?"
"It's Microsoft's groundbreaking new technology that lets any language call objects written in any other language through a virtual machine abstraction!"
Is it just me, or does Microsoft keep inventing the same thing over and over again trying to get it right? Soon enough.NET will turn out to be kinda like COM and DCOM and OCX but not really and then some hot, new, ground-breaking three letter acronym will come out and we will do it all again.
I'm a funny guy. I like it when things are thought out ahead of time so they can become a stable standard instead of yet-another-half-assed-attempt.
Yes, Red Hat should have done a better job at clearing out the bugs from the 7.0 distro before they released it but the fact of the matter is is that the open source community thrives on the "Release early, Release often" philosophy. They deserve our ire if they are not able to respond to the bugs and get us a clean 7.1 sometime soon but not for putting together a whole new version of their distro and the bugs that come with that.
As for people who slapped 7.0 on production servers before giving the new version a few weeks to season or be tested, you get what you deserve. Now everyone do your part and beat on your favorite distros releases right after they are released and at very least submit bug reports and at very worse offer a patch. It's the community effort that makes us strong.
Does anyone have any info on Linux support on RS/6000? Yellowdog Linux claims to work on older single processor RS/6000's but not the newer ones. I called IBM and they said there was no Linux support for their RS/6000's at all and no plans for such. Does anyone know what is holding this up. IBM has been very forward thinking about supporting linux on its hardware, so this seems odd to me.
And why does Yellowdog only run on old uniprocessor boxes? Is Linux's multi-processor support for G4's lacking in some way? RS/6000 are great price/performance servers and its a shame they only run AIX.
SGI has already commited to producing huge
NUMA servers based off the Itanium processors.
Porting IRIX to this new architecture will be
a huge undertaking as it has been tied to the
MIPS architecture forever. Linux on the other
hand ports quite easily. SGI is doing research
as to what it would take to get Linux to
run well on massive boxes like these.
If linux can cut the mustard there will be
no need to port IRIX and that will save SGI
one huge headache.
The whole fact that a license I have not read can apply to me only because it says so, really bothers me. Someone should make a license that says you choose to agree to it if the package is opened, and the license state the person agreeing has to give you a pound of flesh or some such. Then do the exchange with someone you trust and take each other to court! We need to set some precedence in court that such licenses are total bull!!
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you! Finally, someone who knowns what they are talking about!
(btw - 7.1 has text-based indices, finer grained disk usage can be done with simlinks in the data directory, database can be backed up live [but not to my knowledge restored])
Then why is it so hard for me to find someone who can tell me what makes Oracle better than Postgres?
Every time I ask someone what makes Oracle so much better they either say "Enterprise features!" and change the subject or say "Oracle has X!" making obvious their ignorance of Postgres since it has X too.
As of PostgreSQL 7.1 Oracle is not longer the faster of the two. Thanks to GreatBridge, Postgres has awesome support. Postgres now has all the foreign keys and inner and outer, left, right, up, and down joins. It has a data management layer where you can stick your indexes on a different spindle than your table. It has stored procedures and triggers. It has full transaction support and a write ahead log.
Come on! Will one of you Oracle advocates PLEASE tell me what the hell makes Oracle so damn good. I'm not trying to pick a flame war, I just want to know! Has Oracle really fallen so far behind that the only people who advocate it are those who are drinking too much of the Coolaid to form a real argument? There must be another reason people like it so much!
I am all ears. What has Oracle got that Postgres does not? The only thing I am aware of is the JVM built into the core of it and that it can be used as a versioning file system. Is there anything else?
I wish someone would PLEASE enlighten me as to what all these great secret enterprise features are that Oracle has that Postgres does not!
Kind of a waste of news if we don't slashdot the petition and get to play the game ;-)
There was an article here on slashdot that compared four different scripting languages. From the standpoint of speed PHP came in first. PHP has a reputation of being the fastest web scripting language and, to be honest, is a joy to program in as well. If this is not enough speed Zend sells a PHP cache that will precompile all your pages to speed things up even more. I believe there is a free version of the PHP cache out there but I don't know it by name.
And before you use MySQL please read this. MySQL has a reputation of being the fastest open source database but it really can't scale like Postgres can.
I tried to connect to the tradewars server and was presented with what I think was ANSI graphics. But this time, just like the last, I got only vt100 graphics. Does anyone out there know how to get ANSI graphics working under an xterm/telnet? Is linux limited to 7 bit ASCII?
This is awesome.
Everyday it seems like Microsoft is doing more and more to dig it's own grave. It's still acting like it's the big dog in town and can just decide which standards it will choose to use and which it wont. The only two places java really matters is on servers and in browsers. And while they may own the browser market at the moment they cant NOT support it because Sun can just make a an ActiveX control that embeds it. But the DON'T own the server market, not even close. Their avarice will lead to their own extinction. It's only a matter of time.
Bill Gates!
(How'd that happen...)
It drives me crazy that people keep making hardgood theft analogies to IP theft. Be it napster or pirated windows, it's a different kind of stealing. When you steal a ford, it's gone. The dealer paid money for it and can't recover the costs because you are out joy riding in it. Secondly you never own softgoods, you just own the right to use/enjoy them.
A much better analogy would be to compare software piracy to photocopying a book at the library when no one is looking,
Fretting over one's CPU, if reliability is at stake, is a real waste of time. There are four high risk components in any computer.
Hard drives fail. Raid arrays and hot swap can reduce the danger here
Power supplies fail. Having redundant hot swappable power supplies are the only way to go
The CPU fan will eventually stop and you should have software monitoring this and reporting to you when it starts slowing down.
The OS is the most complex and error prone part of the system. It's very important to have a good one and very hard to find. Heck, that's why most of the people at this site are here. You won't find a slashdot site for power supplies or CPU fans.
If your hardware is going to fail the CPU is just as likely to blow as a network card or some RAM. It has no moving parts, just pushes electrons around the same way again and again and as long as its well cooled will give you no grief. As for CPU quirks, just about any CPU will have them. Once a CPU has had a few months to season it's bugs are either well known and the chip is avoided or fixed with a BIOS upgrade or OS patch (never to be an issue again). The Athlon is well seasoned and stable.
But honestly, if hundreds of thousands of dollars and people reputations are on the line there is no alternative but high availability clustering. None. Zero. Nada. It's even better if the nodes are in different time zones. So for Pete's sake, make a nice fast cluster of Athlon boxes with RAID 5 and three power supplies a piece running Linux or QNX. Then pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
...we'll be able to bring our guns to church.
"It's Microsoft's groundbreaking new technology that lets any language call objects written in any other language!"
"Wow! So what's DCOM?"
"It's Microsoft's groundbreaking new technology that lets any language call objects written in any other language over a network!"
"Wow! So what's ALT?"
"It's Microsoft's groundbreaking new technology that lets any language call objects written in any other language so you perform do automation!"
"Wow! So what's an OCX control?"
"It's Microsoft's groundbreaking new technology that lets any language call objects written in any other language through controls that can be manipulated with a GUI tool!"
"So, what's
"It's Microsoft's groundbreaking new technology that lets any language call objects written in any other language through a virtual machine abstraction!"
Is it just me, or does Microsoft keep inventing the same thing over and over again trying to get it right? Soon enough .NET will turn out to be kinda like COM and DCOM and OCX but not really and then some hot, new, ground-breaking three letter acronym will come out and we will do it all again.
I'm a funny guy. I like it when things are thought out ahead of time so they can become a stable standard instead of yet-another-half-assed-attempt.
Yes, Red Hat should have done a better job at clearing out the bugs from the 7.0 distro before they released it but the fact of the matter is is that the open source community thrives on the "Release early, Release often" philosophy. They deserve our ire if they are not able to respond to the bugs and get us a clean 7.1 sometime soon but not for putting together a whole new version of their distro and the bugs that come with that.
As for people who slapped 7.0 on production servers before giving the new version a few weeks to season or be tested, you get what you deserve. Now everyone do your part and beat on your favorite distros releases right after they are released and at very least submit bug reports and at very worse offer a patch. It's the community effort that makes us strong.
Does anyone have any info on Linux support on RS/6000? Yellowdog Linux claims to work on older single processor RS/6000's but not the newer ones. I called IBM and they said there was no Linux support for their RS/6000's at all and no plans for such. Does anyone know what is holding this up. IBM has been very forward thinking about supporting linux on its hardware, so this seems odd to me.
And why does Yellowdog only run on old uniprocessor boxes? Is Linux's multi-processor support for G4's lacking in some way? RS/6000 are great price/performance servers and its a shame they only run AIX.
SGI has already commited to producing huge
NUMA servers based off the Itanium processors.
Porting IRIX to this new architecture will be
a huge undertaking as it has been tied to the
MIPS architecture forever. Linux on the other
hand ports quite easily. SGI is doing research
as to what it would take to get Linux to
run well on massive boxes like these.
If linux can cut the mustard there will be
no need to port IRIX and that will save SGI
one huge headache.
The whole fact that a license I have not read
can apply to me only because it says so, really
bothers me. Someone should make a license that
says you choose to agree to it if the package is
opened, and the license state the person agreeing
has to give you a pound of flesh or some such.
Then do the exchange with someone you trust and
take each other to court! We need to set some
precedence in court that such licenses are total
bull!!