[Zope] Which database?

[Christopher Petrilli]

> I'd like to use MySQL because of it's integration with Zope
> and web in general... and then it's a nice product too.

MySQL's biggest failing is it's total lack of transactions, which can be a
serious issue if you have heavy use of your system for updating.  It's
really best used in a 99%+ read-only environment in my opinion.  I guess I
just don't trust non-transactional relational databases.

> My collegeague is obsessed with security so he on the
> PostgreSQL wagon. Main issue for him is transaction control.
> I say: heavy hardware and light usage means no need for
> transaction control in my world.

PostgreSQL is slow, unfortunately, otherwise, it's a good product from what
I've seen, and certainly is improving with time.

> My boss says: go with Oracle or Informix. Our company
> already has licenses for these products.
> I think they are too heavy, too big and too closed. That's
> bad.

Honestly, I don't see "closed" as an issue here.  Do you really expect to
make changes to the database code?  Even if Oracle released all the source
code, I only think a small handful of people would ever understand the
internals of a query path optimizer.   The issue also might be that if you
plan to integrate with multiple other systems in the future (which is always
a good thing for keeping data rational) then certainly you could face
integration problems with non-"standard" databases.

It's your call, but I don't think that "open source" should be a judgement
criteria of any weight on a database.  It's opaque for a reason.

Chris

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| Christopher Petrilli        Python Powered        Digital Creations, Inc.
| petrilli@digicool.com                             http://www.digicool.com