[Zope] Summary of DB Discussion

[Karl Fast]

I thought it might be worthwhile to sum up the various points about
databases and zope and linux that were made today. Please correct any
mistakes and provide any comments you have.

 - Zope has strong database connections for Oracle and Solid, with DB2 in
   the works. These are all officially supported DA's.

 - There is an ODBC DA, but it works only on Windows because there isn't a
   good ODBC implementation on Linux. This isn't Zope's fault.

 - There are DA's for MySQL and PostgreSQL, the two open source databases
   (yeah, yeah, MySQL isn't truly open source--although one of the older
   version is). They work, although both are still in development (is this
   active?) and some people have had troubles getting them to compile. 
   This seems especially true of the MySQL DA judging from pleas for help
   sent to the zope list, although this may be more of a reflection of
   MySQL's popularity over PostgreSQL.

 - The big criticism against MySQL is the lack of transaction support. MySQL
   is not popular with the DC folks because of this. Their customers use
   DB's with transaction support (Oracle, Sybase, and DB2) and their main
   concern is developing and supporting DA's for DB's their clients use.

 - DC is looking for someone in the zope community to take ownership of
   the MySQL DA (what's the status of the PostgreSQL DA?)

 - Despite it's lack of transaction support, it was agreed that MySQL
     (a) is popular
     (b) is very fast and a good choice for sites that do high volume
         queries, but relatively simple and low-volume updates
     (c) will be getting transaction support "real soon now" according
         to the web site
     (d) should have a good, up to date, Zope DA

 - PostgreSQL, the other open source DB, does support transactions. There is
   a Zope DA. Some people suggested that PostgreSQL is a bit buggy. Other
   said that it works great. Everyone agreed that it's a bit on the slow
   side, especially when compared to MySQL.


What am I missing?

What did I get wrong?



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Karl Fast