At 04:34 PM 5/14/2002, you wrote:
>I'd be interested in how both of you compared them.
>
>Thanks,
>--jeff
Jeff,
I'm using MySQL for a webserver and didn't really want to use
Firebird (Interbase) for that type of application. It is my feeling that IB
requires more maintenance than MySQL. It's peculiar transaction scheme
requires the database to be swept from time to time (daily if you do a lot
of updates) to get rid of the old records. If you update or delete a
record, the old record isn't really deleted. The new record has a higher
transaction number so it gets retrieved over an older one. This means
updated/deleted records stick around until it is swept (which is an
automatic process) and this may have an effect on performance. This type of
transactions is really fast if you are doing a lot of rollbacks because
rolling back thousands of records takes just milliseconds. IB is a feature
rich relational database. It has everything you could ever want in a
database. Triggers, stored procedures, calculated fields. You can also
write your own functions in a Delphi or CB dll and call them as if they
were another IB function. People normally don't recompile the IB source, at
least not as much as with MySQL. IB runs on Windows, Linux, and Solaris.
BUT IB is much more CPU intensive for the same # of users than
MySQL. There used to be a limit of 254 concurrent users but I believe that
limit has been surpassed with the Linux version. I don't know how well IB
will run with that many users because the CPU may max out before then.
There is also a question of connection speed on a web server. Most people
would use persistent connections and employ middleware to connect more than
254 users at a time. Middleware like Midas (Borland) of course costs money.
The price of Midas has dropped in the past few years from around $2500 per
server to around $250. I would also be a bit hesitant to put more than say
a million rows in an IB database. This is just me, mind you. Some people
have successfully put 100 million rows into IB tables. My hesitation comes
from the fact that IB will slow down if there are a lot of updates, even
with sweeping. You need to unload and reload the data occasionally. And IB
inserts data at a much slower rate than MySQL. So if it is run on a
webserver, it means more down time. It could take a couple of days to
reload 100 million rows in IB.
My personal feeling is that IB is better suited to vertical market
applications or for corporate databases where they absolutely need
referential integrity. Here they can take the database down overnight, do
maintenance on it, and it won't affect anyone. This is difficult to do if
it us running on a webserver. If your webserver is readonly and has a low
number of concurrent users, then IB might be worth a look. IB (Firebird)
licensing is also much more liberal than MySQL because Firebird
applications can be distributed freely on all platforms, even for
commercial use. Sadly there aren't any books on Interbase. The last one was
printed in 1997 (Ken Henderson) and dealt with accessing IB from Delphi
applications. All of the documentation is in PDF files and IB is well
documented (but fragmented in a lot of PDF files). For more information,
see http://firebird.sourceforge.net/ and http://www.ibphoenix.com/ .
Well, that's my 2 cents worth. <g> IB (Firebird) is heavy duty
database and exceeds PostgreSQL in features. So if you're leaning towards
PostgreSQL, you may want to look at Firebird. It's not the fastest database
on the block, but it is feature-rich. (chubby?<g>).
Mike
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "mos" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "Michael Grover" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 7:35 AM
>Subject: Re: Best book on MySQL
>
>
> > At 09:25 PM 5/11/2002, you wrote:
> >
> > >I ported several applications from Firebird 1.0 to MySQL 4.
> > >The main things I ran into was little SQL Syntax differences, Stored
> > >procedures, and
> > >Triggers...
> > >
> > >
> > > mike
> >
> > Mike,
> > Out of curiosity, why did you switch from Interbase to MySQL?
> > (I've used both)
> >
> > Mike
> >
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