Re: [HACKERS] Enticing interns to PostgreSQL

On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 02:33:22AM -0700, Jeff Davis wrote:
> Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> >>Also, there's a PostgreSQL project that I'm planning on working on (not
> >>even much work left, really), so I'll see if the professor shows any
> >>interest in my project.
> >
> >
> > Well, since the typical belief is that MySQL is a good choice for
> > things, http://sql-info.de/mysql/gotchas.html is probably a good start.
>
> That's always a great resource. I would be very disappointed, however,
> if a university professor was using MySQL to teach about relational theory.

Sadly, I'd be willing to bet there's a lot of professors using MySQL to
teach database theory. Just like there's a lot of other people who use
it because they don't know any better. But everyone else uses it, so it
must be good, right?

I fear that MySQL will be a repeat of linux... invest millions (if not
billions) in something to finally get it caught up to a better
alternative that had been around all along.

Why should this matter to PostgreSQL and it's users? Because if MySQL
becomes the defacto open source database, that means it will be much
more difficult to use PostgreSQL in professional environments, and that
many people who might have developed for PostgreSQL will end up
developing for MySQL.

> I'll try to passively raise PostgreSQL awareness when appropriate.
> Hopefully the professor might take an interest in my project and maybe
> PostgreSQL will gain awareness among the faculty.

Good luck! Hopefully armed with the gotchas you can convince them to not
only use PostgreSQL to teach students with, but also to enlighten the
students of everything you shouldn't do in a RDBMS.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Database Consultant               decibel@decibel.org
Give your computer some brain candy! www.distributed.net Team #1828

Windows: "Where do you want to go today?"
Linux: "Where do you want to go tomorrow?"
FreeBSD: "Are you guys coming, or what?"