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I like to trot out this old gem[1] when people wonder why there's so much hate for MySQL. Nontransactional DDL alone is sufficient to classify it as a toy DB f

by davidp 8y ago

I like to trot out this old gem[1] when people wonder why there's so much hate for MySQL. Nontransactional DDL alone is sufficient to classify it as a toy DB for me. Yes, I've been personally bitten by it. [1]: https://grimoire.ca/mysql/choose-something-else https://grimoire.ca/mysql/choose-something-else

cdubzzz 8y ago
This talks a lot about 5.5 and mentions that 5.6 is “due out soon”. The current release series is 5.7. How much of this is outdated and how much has stayed the same?
- dsp1234 8y ago
  "Some statements cannot be rolled back. In general, these include data definition language (DDL) statements, such as those that create or drop databases, those that create, drop, or alter tables or stored routines." [0] [0] - https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/cannot-roll-back.html https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/cannot-roll-back.htm...
- lstamour 8y ago
  Some things are improving — for example: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/atomic-ddl.html https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/atomic-ddl.html And https://mysqlserverteam.com/new-defaults-in-mysql-8-0/ https://mysqlserverteam.com/new-defaults-in-mysql-8-0/ Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5122299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5122299 Personally, I only use MySQL and derivatives where I have to (basically WordPress.)
misframer 8y ago
According to [1] Oracle doesn't have transactional DDL either. [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4711447/oracle-ddl-and-transaction-rollback https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4711447/oracle-ddl-and-t...
jjeaff 8y ago
Well, you should school those fools at Google, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Amazon... and tell them how they are wasting time with their toy MySQL databases.
- zimpenfish 8y ago
  > those fools at Google, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Amazon ... have dedicated hundreds of engineers and millions of dollars to nothing more than keeping MySQL up, running, and not crapping the bed every time someone looks at it funny. If you can afford that resource expenditure, by all means go nuts with MySQL. Most companies can't and would be far better served by something which doesn't need that amount of handholding to serve its basic purpose.
  - pisky 8y ago
    There is one thing that bugs me about all the talk of postgres' superiority: why haven't these companies switched to postgresql? Surely they weren't all too far invested in mysql before a "more knowledgeable" DBA came along saying postgresql is better.
    - zimpenfish 8y ago
      > Surely they weren't all too far invested in mysql I think by the time Postgres sorted itself out into a more user/admin-friendly system (which is still fairly recently, really), MySQL had pretty much conquered the "quick and easy" mindshare and was deeply embedded almost everywhere. And if you've spent millions of dollars architecting your systems such that MySQL's flaws aren't killer issues, there's very little financial benefit to switching, I guess.
    - wlll 8y ago
      Because MySQL is the PHP of databases. Much like PHP is designed to just carry on truckin' whatever problem it encounters (https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/), MySQL was too. It's easy to slam some data into it and get it back without having to think too hard about what you're actually storing (https://grimoire.ca/mysql/choose-something-else https://grimoire.ca/mysql/choose-something-else). It's ease of use made it pervasive, much like PHP. Following on from that, I suspect a lot of large companies use MySQL because they always have, not because it's actually any good. For example, Basecamp used MySQL while I was there, but I never met a single Sysadmin there who would use it over Postgres if they were to start a new project.
baud147258 8y ago
I like the part "We used it because it was there. Please hire some fucking software developers and go back to writing elevator pitches and flirting with Y Combinator."

by davidp 8y ago

cdubzzz 8y ago

This talks a lot about 5.5 and mentions that 5.6 is “due out soon”. The current release series is 5.7. How much of this is outdated and how much has stayed the same?

dsp1234 8y ago
"Some statements cannot be rolled back. In general, these include data definition language (DDL) statements, such as those that create or drop databases, those that create, drop, or alter tables or stored routines." [0] [0] - https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/cannot-roll-back.html https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/cannot-roll-back.htm...
lstamour 8y ago
Some things are improving — for example: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/atomic-ddl.html https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/atomic-ddl.html And https://mysqlserverteam.com/new-defaults-in-mysql-8-0/ https://mysqlserverteam.com/new-defaults-in-mysql-8-0/ Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5122299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5122299 Personally, I only use MySQL and derivatives where I have to (basically WordPress.)

misframer 8y ago

According to [1] Oracle doesn't have transactional DDL either. [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4711447/oracle-ddl-and-transaction-rollback https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4711447/oracle-ddl-and-t...

jjeaff 8y ago

Well, you should school those fools at Google, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Amazon... and tell them how they are wasting time with their toy MySQL databases.

zimpenfish 8y ago
> those fools at Google, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Amazon ... have dedicated hundreds of engineers and millions of dollars to nothing more than keeping MySQL up, running, and not crapping the bed every time someone looks at it funny. If you can afford that resource expenditure, by all means go nuts with MySQL. Most companies can't and would be far better served by something which doesn't need that amount of handholding to serve its basic purpose.
- pisky 8y ago
  There is one thing that bugs me about all the talk of postgres' superiority: why haven't these companies switched to postgresql? Surely they weren't all too far invested in mysql before a "more knowledgeable" DBA came along saying postgresql is better.
  - zimpenfish 8y ago
    > Surely they weren't all too far invested in mysql I think by the time Postgres sorted itself out into a more user/admin-friendly system (which is still fairly recently, really), MySQL had pretty much conquered the "quick and easy" mindshare and was deeply embedded almost everywhere. And if you've spent millions of dollars architecting your systems such that MySQL's flaws aren't killer issues, there's very little financial benefit to switching, I guess.
  - wlll 8y ago
    Because MySQL is the PHP of databases. Much like PHP is designed to just carry on truckin' whatever problem it encounters (https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/), MySQL was too. It's easy to slam some data into it and get it back without having to think too hard about what you're actually storing (https://grimoire.ca/mysql/choose-something-else https://grimoire.ca/mysql/choose-something-else). It's ease of use made it pervasive, much like PHP. Following on from that, I suspect a lot of large companies use MySQL because they always have, not because it's actually any good. For example, Basecamp used MySQL while I was there, but I never met a single Sysadmin there who would use it over Postgres if they were to start a new project.

baud147258 8y ago

I like the part "We used it because it was there. Please hire some fucking software developers and go back to writing elevator pitches and flirting with Y Combinator."