Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to mysql passes the acid test?

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Posted by Roberto Mello on
As usual, the MySQL crowd is doing unrealistic benchmarks that will obviously will favour their "speed is all that matters. who cares about everything else a database should do?" approach.

If they'd remember their undergraduate computer architecture class, they'd know that the only benchmarks that truly matter are the one with real applications.

Just think about it: How many times in the lifetime of a project, do you insert 100,000 rows all at once? How many times do you do a count(*) on a table you _know_ is huge? These are not realistic uses of a database, unless you have no clue of what you're doing, or are still learning.

Now, how many times do you have users entering bad data and maybe you forgot to put a check? How many times do you do queries that are not so trivial as a count(*)? How many times do you use a subselect in your queries? How many times do you need to write stored procedures to make your life easier and programming faster?

You want a real benchmark? Go look at the tests Tim Perdue did with MySQL and PostreSQL this past january (beore the improvementh in 7.1 that Don mentions) at http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/tim20001112.php3. THAT is a real benchmark. Look at the results and decide what's more important: being fast on unrealistic operations or being safe and faster or realist operations.