On 10/16/2009 11:28 AM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
Dave Page wrote:
Too many of those caveats, and it's easy to see how we can be
discounted early in the evaluation phase. It's not helped that often
these lists will be drawn up by people used to working with the
commercial DBMSs, so we probably wouldn't get extra points for having
a dozen procedural languages, or other features that are largely
unique to PostgreSQL, no matter how cool and useful they are.
Yep, this is illustrating something that is pretty basic to open source
--- that is open source often provides the tools for a solution, rather
than a complete solution. I often think of open source as providing a
calculator with wires sticking out, rather than calculator buttons; the
wires allow more flexibility, but they are harder to use.
Although often true - I think this is selling PostgreSQL a little short.
It is a self-contained solution for what it does best, and for those
that need more - there are better frameworks designed to be integrated
that PostgreSQL is able to integrate with. PostgreSQL isn't a calculator
with wires - if anything, I think PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use full
functioned calculator whereas Oracle might be some advanced HP
calculator that requires special training to learn how to use right... :-)
Personally I think the calculator/wires approach is better from an
engineering perspective, but it can be a handicap in the user experience
and checkbox categories --- ease of use is perhaps not our strong point.
Much of our open source value is being different, in both cost,
reliability, and configurability.
I found this true of a lot of tools. I still remember when the mutt
developers argued against putting IMAP in their solution because they
thought there might be a better "IMAP component" client out there.
Eventually, such arguments are dropped, as the practical sense on the
matter says that tight integration is a requirement.
I don't see how PostgreSQL has really failed in this regard. Maybe
Oracle comes out-of-box with more features - but this doesn't make it
necessarily a more "complete" solution - it just means it has more bells
and whistles. A bicycle doesn't need a ticking card mounted through the
spokes for it to be considered a "complete solution". :-) Somebody might
one day want that "feature" - but it's extra - it's not core.
Cheers,
mark
--
Mark Mielke<m...@mielke.cc>
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