Comment on PostgreSQL 16 Released

Olap@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• Buckshot@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  We use SQL Server at work and I really don’t get why. It’s so expensive. We’re hosting it on AWS as well. I can’t remember the numbers but it’s several times more than a similarly specced postgres and we’re only using Standard edition.

  I don’t think we’re really using any features that would stop us moving over, it’s really just inertia and in-house knowledge.

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  • ono@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Sounds like an opportunity to be the shepherd of change that saves the company money.

    Beware of one-trick database admins (if you have those) and salespeople who earn their living fighting such changes.

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    • Buckshot@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yeah I’ve been dropping not very subtle hints. We’re only a small company, about 25 people. We don’t have any dedicated database admins at all.

      It’s on the list I think but we don’t have the people to spare to get it done.

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    • m_r_butts@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Fair, but also beware of confusing a specialist with a one-trick-pony.

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• abbadon420@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  You sure know how to bring up the elephant in the room. But mysql is decent enough too, not my favourite, but good enough.

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  • urquell@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Mariadb, maybe.

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  • Olap@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It certainly was a strong competitor fifteen years ago. If only they kept pace

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  • computergeek125@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Good pun

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• Dr_Cog@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Can you elaborate? I’m deciding on what type of SQL to use for my lab and am thinking about MySQL. Should we reconsider?

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  • Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You absolutely should. There are many issues with MySQL but I’ll give you a very compelling one.

    Let’s say you want to use a database transaction while you’re modifying your table structure to ensure if something goes wrong your data is screwed (causing you to have to restore a backup, etc).

    With MySQL any table alterations will persist even though data modifications will be rolled back.

    With Postgres, if you cancel/rollback that transaction it all goes back to exactly how it was before.

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    Another great example is the unique constraint enforcement.

    In Postgres if you want to swap two unique values between two rows, you just put it in a transaction and do it.

    In MySQL, you have to set one of the values to a temporary garbage value, then change the other value, then change the temporary garbage value to what it should’ve been.

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    Another example, if you have a column that’s INT NOT NULL…

    If you insert a NULL, Postgres will give you an error, MySQL will silently insert 0.

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  • technojamin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I don’t know exactly what environment you’re working, but Postgres has a reputation as the best DBMS to work with from a developer’s perspective. I definitely feel that way, at least.

    What type of lab are you working in, and what other technologies do you work with?

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    • Dr_Cog@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’m the director of technology for a neurology lab, where we collect patient health record data in a variety of disparate machines and modalities (e.g., MRI, EEG, physical functioning, retinal scans, etc.). We’ve been using the open-source database software REDCap (basically a wrapper for MySQL that enables easy GUI-based data entry), but we are reaching the limits of what it can handle and need something that can scale with our growing database.

      I have little experience in database management myself, but I am a competent programmer and feel comfortable learning whatever is needed (famous last words, I know).

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      • decus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I have experience running both at global scale (self managed, AWS RDS & GCP CloudSQL). Developer experience = postgres, management/sysadmin = MySQL/maria

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• Turun@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Sqlite is simple.

  But I get what you mean, for large projects salute is not an option. Its embeddability is unbeatable though. open_database(“:memory:”) is so unbelievably convenient.

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  • Michal@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Sqlite is nice and fast. I think the only disadvantage is you can’t connect to it from multiple processes or machines, so scalability goes out the window.

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    • mlunar@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      You can, but only one can write at a time, which may or may not be a problem :)

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• kaknife@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  We use DB2, but mostly because we call it from a mainframe.

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• dyc3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I’ve heard that it doesn’t scale well. Something to do with the vacuum process? I don’t remember. Personally, I don’t really buy it.

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