Friday, June 5. 2009
The First Rule of Postgres Club
I had to chuckle when reading the comments of Alan Snelsons blog entry talking about PostgreSQL's project stability in the face of recent MySQL unsteadiness. Of course it shouldn't be a surprise that mentioning Postgres around MySQL people you might get some type of negative reaction. And vice versa of course. And with other db communities too, not just these two. But I digress. However what I really liked about the comments was this quote:
The beauty here is that I found this blog post via Planet MySQL, not Planet Postgres. Further I've never heard of Alan Snelson; the post's author; he hasn't spoken at a Postgres event, and isn't syndicated on Planet Postgres. As far as I know, he just some guy who uses MySQL a lot, and now is looking at Postgres. Apparently he likes it and wants to spread the word. And of course people who don't like hearing about Postgres use this as a mark against the Postgres community, even when the Postgres project has nothing to do with it. You know software is no good when people who use it want to tell you how awesome it is!
In truth, that's how a lot of Postgres advocacy works these days. When you see people posting on slashdot, most of the time it's not from people working directly with the project. For those of us who have been using Postgres for a long time, we've long since got the message that MySQL users don't want to hear about Postgres. When I sat in the MariaDB feature request round table at the Percona Performance conference, listening to people ask for feature after feature that Postgres already has; partial indexes, index fillfactor, online ddl, extensible data types, dtrace probes, PITR, the list goes on; I didn't wave the Postgres banner. The only time I spoke about Postgres was when Monty had questions about Postgres' implementation. Some people asked me why I wasn't more vocal, why didn't I tell everyone about all the wonderful things that Postgres can do? What can I say... it's the first rule of Postgres club.
"PostgreSQL vs. MySQL is a non-issue for most people because the decision is already made. I don’t know what’s the point in bringing that up every-time, it shines a bad light on the postgres community."
The beauty here is that I found this blog post via Planet MySQL, not Planet Postgres. Further I've never heard of Alan Snelson; the post's author; he hasn't spoken at a Postgres event, and isn't syndicated on Planet Postgres. As far as I know, he just some guy who uses MySQL a lot, and now is looking at Postgres. Apparently he likes it and wants to spread the word. And of course people who don't like hearing about Postgres use this as a mark against the Postgres community, even when the Postgres project has nothing to do with it. You know software is no good when people who use it want to tell you how awesome it is!
In truth, that's how a lot of Postgres advocacy works these days. When you see people posting on slashdot, most of the time it's not from people working directly with the project. For those of us who have been using Postgres for a long time, we've long since got the message that MySQL users don't want to hear about Postgres. When I sat in the MariaDB feature request round table at the Percona Performance conference, listening to people ask for feature after feature that Postgres already has; partial indexes, index fillfactor, online ddl, extensible data types, dtrace probes, PITR, the list goes on; I didn't wave the Postgres banner. The only time I spoke about Postgres was when Monty had questions about Postgres' implementation. Some people asked me why I wasn't more vocal, why didn't I tell everyone about all the wonderful things that Postgres can do? What can I say... it's the first rule of Postgres club.
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preface: I dba a TON of mysql and a tiny amount of postgres. I do however like postgres much more in every respect except replication and advocate it loudly which greatly annoying coworkers.
Until recently I hung out on both #mysql and #postgres. As far as I can tell postgres was rarely if ever mentioned on #mysql. On the other hand mysql was frequently complained about on #postgres, and I have tried to reduce the FUD there.
It is my experience that mysql user generally don't have any much experience with postgres much more than installing it and quitting a short time later. (why the hell can't I login or why the hell is it so hard to create an auto_increment pk)
It is my experience that postgres user generally have either had brief but bad experience with mysql or none at all and accept hearsay.
I think the open source community would be better if we could all accept that:
they are both good systems.
there are annoyances with each. (in place upgrades, simple replication OR lack of a decent stored proc language, transactional ddl, less than awesome optimizer)
most people will only use one or the other and be greatly annoyed by the one that they choose not to use.
Until recently I hung out on both #mysql and #postgres. As far as I can tell postgres was rarely if ever mentioned on #mysql. On the other hand mysql was frequently complained about on #postgres, and I have tried to reduce the FUD there.
It is my experience that mysql user generally don't have any much experience with postgres much more than installing it and quitting a short time later. (why the hell can't I login or why the hell is it so hard to create an auto_increment pk)
It is my experience that postgres user generally have either had brief but bad experience with mysql or none at all and accept hearsay.
I think the open source community would be better if we could all accept that:
they are both good systems.
there are annoyances with each. (in place upgrades, simple replication OR lack of a decent stored proc language, transactional ddl, less than awesome optimizer)
most people will only use one or the other and be greatly annoyed by the one that they choose not to use.
Correct link to the blog is http://www.wave2.org/2009/06/03/postgresql-rock-solid-in-the-face-of-forking-mysql/
I guess the second rule of the Postgres club is to syndicate your blog on Planet MySQL?
Please stop polluting my rss feed, kthx.
Please stop polluting my rss feed, kthx.
Well, I'm in the business of making databases work, whether it's Postgres, MySQL, Oracle, or what have you. This gives me a unique perspective that many of the other people on Planet MySQL have told me they find valuable. Don't worry, you're not getting my full feed, only things that seem relevant to MySQL and it's community, but I appreciate that won't appease the haters.
Well it was a cheap shot, but he started it 
Most postgres users I know are not like that, only most of those who are vocal in "MySQL terrain".
I don't see MySQL and PostgreSQL as competition. Having worked with both, I know what to use and when, although I don't always have the luxury to choose which one I'd want for a particular task.
What I don't like is that some just act like MySQL users use MySQL because they don't know better. That might be true for some, but not for all of them, especially not those who spent a lot of time thinking and reading about database (planetmysql users for example). And sometimes it just smells like Microsoft's "get the facts" campaign.
I think Postgres should be more popular, postings like Alan's are not really helping.
Most postgres users I know are not like that, only most of those who are vocal in "MySQL terrain". I don't see MySQL and PostgreSQL as competition. Having worked with both, I know what to use and when, although I don't always have the luxury to choose which one I'd want for a particular task.
What I don't like is that some just act like MySQL users use MySQL because they don't know better. That might be true for some, but not for all of them, especially not those who spent a lot of time thinking and reading about database (planetmysql users for example). And sometimes it just smells like Microsoft's "get the facts" campaign.
I think Postgres should be more popular, postings like Alan's are not really helping.
Robert, I always appreciate your thoughtful comments, and that's exactly why you are such a good advocate, and why it was great to have you at the Percona conf. Attraction is a much better policy than promotion.
That ties in quite well with this article "Advertising as failure" (http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/05/30/advertising-as-failure/):
"That is, the ideal relationship a company should have with its customer is that it produces a great product the customer loves and talks about and thus sells; there is no need for advertising there. It’s only in the case of failing at that idea that one needs to advertise."
"That is, the ideal relationship a company should have with its customer is that it produces a great product the customer loves and talks about and thus sells; there is no need for advertising there. It’s only in the case of failing at that idea that one needs to advertise."
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Hi! I'm Robert Treat, COO of OmniTI, perhaps the best internet technology consulting company on the planet.
A veteran open source developer and advocate, I have been recognized as a major contributor to the PostgreSQL project, and can often be found speaking on open source, databases, and large scale web operations.
A veteran open source developer and advocate, I have been recognized as a major contributor to the PostgreSQL project, and can often be found speaking on open source, databases, and large scale web operations.
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