• (cs) in reply to rhino-x
    rhino-x:

    I didn't mean to say T-SQL was great, I meant to say that it's "EASY TO LEARN", which could by extension mean "DOESN'T DO A WHOLE LOT FOR YOU WHEN COMPARED TO THE SWISS ARMY KNIFE THAT IS PL/SQL". It's easier to do some things with SQL Server than MySQL so that's what they do.


    It's easier for almost any database to do some things than mysql.


    rhino-x:

    However, I stand behind the assertions (mine and others) that Yahoo! uses mysql for just about everything -- I have several friends there and interviewed with them myself. It's an impressive setup, and a testament to the open-source model. FreeBSD with home-grown package mgmt, in-house builds of apache and mysql, scripting done primarily in PHP.

     


    Well, if yahoo doesn't need any transactions, referential integrity, etc. fine with me. Question is: what about their inhouse systems, such as accounting, etc.? Do they run also on mysql? I'd rather doubt that.

    l.

  • (cs) in reply to ammoQ
    ammoQ:

    Obviously it limits the scalablity of the system if everything is done in the DB.


    Considering options such as RAC, I'd question that on a general basis. Middle layer may help in some cases, but can also hurt in others.

    ammoQ:

    Obviously you sell your soul to Oracle if you depend heavily on PL/SQL. If you can live with that, it can deliver well working systems just like many other architectures.


    Yes, vendor lock in. But that can happen with any other system. OSS counterparts would at least give you the option to continue development if the responsible developer team behind the said product would leave.

    ammoQ:

    There is some truth in this argument, but on the other hand, sometimes it simply doesn't matter. Eighter the system is small enough to still run on a single Server with 1-4 CPUs or money constraints are not that important.


    It also depends on the number of users, etc. and it keeps evolving. Even Oracle aims  for "free" (XE) or for a reasonable price (5 user SE) with multiprocessor/clustering options.

    ammoQ:

    I think the performance penalty for running stored procedures instead of code in a middle tier is often not that much.


    Just imagine unique/foreign constraints handled by the middle layer and not the database itself - and that's something to consider in the DB agnostic approach.

    ammoQ:

    In this example, most code is database access anyway. The few IFs hardly make a difference in terms of speed. On the other hand, in the stored procedure, it's easy and natural to select only those columns from the table that are needed. The persistence frameworks (like Hibernate) typically used in 3-tier apps probably select all columns, since they cannot guess which columns will be required by the application. This might cause a small performance penalty, especially when the middle tier is not on the same server, but connected through the network. Of course the middle tier can do some caching, but this is a bit like replicating the database's work.


    And the problem with middle tier caching is: how do keep that one consistent? What happen's to that cache, if some other source changes the data inside the database?

    l.
  • Ben (unregistered)

    Does anyone else come to this site, just for a pick me up when they are doubting their own leetness?

  • javaxman (unregistered) in reply to Otto

    Dude. you can not have just seriously downplayed the usefulness of triggers. What, you want to do everything on the application level? That's no way to treat data of any real value.

    I'm not saying MySQL doesn't have it's serious, good uses... but if you have some data that should always change based on the state of other data, it's very good to have a single point of failure, and it's very bad to assume that future application developers will know that the value in foo needs to be recalculated when the value in bar changes.

    If you don't have such a data-dependent recalculation, or you swear you'll only, ever, have one application touching your database, then go ahead, use whatever tool suits you. But don't say triggers are never used. They're used often, even if you haven't seen it done yourself, and they're very useful.

  • javaxman (unregistered) in reply to Ben
    Anonymous:
    Does anyone else come to this site, just for a pick me up when they are doubting their own leetness?

    would there be any other reason? Oh, yea, to get a giggle out of the crap some people do.

    Inadvertantly, I once learned something about C# syntax, I think, but like I said, I didn't mean to learn anything.

  • (cs) in reply to Ytram

    In defense of VBA apps-- they exist because the "heavyweight" tools suck at delivering fast solutions to simple problems.

    In the right context, a VBA app can be a great thing.


  • (cs)

    OMG ! Did he generate the table schemas ?

  • (cs) in reply to H23
    H23:

    In defense of VBA apps-- they exist because the "heavyweight" tools suck at delivering fast solutions to simple problems.

    In the right context, a VBA app can be a great thing.



    That's the marketing words when I'm too lazy to code in java.
  • (cs) in reply to lofwyr

    lofwyr:

    It's easier for almost any database to do some things than mysql.

    That's not entirely true, but it doesn't really matter.

    lofwyr:

    Well, if yahoo doesn't need any transactions, referential integrity, etc. fine with me. Question is: what about their inhouse systems, such as accounting, etc.? Do they run also on mysql? I'd rather doubt that.

    I doubt it too - that's not really an area we've ever discussed.

    You are also assuming that the MySQL they use is not modified in-house, which would surprise me. I don't know the specifics, but damn near everything the run they've made code changes to.

     

  • (cs) in reply to cconroy
    cconroy:
    <font style="font-family: verdana;" size="1"></font><font style="font-family: verdana;" size="1"><font size="2">
    And I don't want to hear from any Brits about how we pronounce "leisure" wrong, either. </font>    </font><font style="font-family: verdana;" size="1"><font size="2">"Colour", my arse.  I mean ass.</font></font>


    Would it be okay if a Canadian brought it up?

    And if you don't mind, we'd prefer that you colour your own arse. I mean ass. Or at least visit a licensed, regulated, and recently-vetted tattoo parlour to have the procedure carried out. I mean, trusting your backside to a bunch of code monkeys?
  • (cs) in reply to OverloadedOperator

    MySQL isn't being used by Yahoo! to power any applications with lots of updates. Or applications where data integrity is mission critical. Or where the data itself is mission critical.

    Quite a bit of the usage is from legacy applications as well [1].
    We use MySQL a lot too [2].


    [1]  I do not work for Yahoo!, but I do know quite a few good people in their development department.
    [2] Legacy. We are now looking at upgrading hardware and rewriting code to use PostgreSQL [3].
    [3] Lots of C code. We need lean and fast. Programmer time is cheap as compared to operating costs (the difference between works and does not work at all).

  • Doom (unregistered) in reply to ChiefCrazyTalk

    Anonymous:
    Ummm no - he means "U.S. English Programmers" as in English-speaking programmers in the United States.

    No, he doesn't. That's just a slang way of saying "We English programmers"

  • (cs) in reply to rhino-x
    rhino-x:

    lofwyr:

    It's easier for almost any database to do some things than mysql.



    That's not entirely true, but it doesn't really matter.


    There was missing a "better". And I used the term "almost" and "some things". But you are right, since I didn't add any further defnitions, it really doesn't matter.

    rhino-x:

    lofwyr:

    Well, if yahoo doesn't need any transactions, referential integrity, etc. fine with me. Question is: what about their inhouse systems, such as accounting, etc.? Do they run also on mysql? I'd rather doubt that.

    I doubt it too - that's not really an area we've ever discussed.


    Yahoo has been used as an example for the successful use of mysql. If the scope was Yahoo's web site, fine with me. Unfortunately are web sites only a fraction of today's existing IT applications.

    rhino-x:

    You are also assuming that the MySQL they use is not modified in-house, which would surprise me. I don't know the specifics, but damn near everything the run they've made code changes to.

     


    Even if mysql is heavily modified, so what? Did Yahoo it's own trigger/stored procedure language? Foreign Constraints? Transactions? Consistent reads? If not, I wouldn't trust that system mission critical data.

    l.

  • mainuser1000 (unregistered) in reply to dasmb

    i know who you are and what you are up too! my question is why???

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