Re: Learning from other open source databases

On Sun, 29 Apr 2001 20:04:19 +0000 (UTC), pgman@candle.pha.pa.us
(Bruce Momjian) wrote:

>Here is a general call for people to review other open-source database
>software and report back on things PostgreSQL can learn from them.
>
>I can see Interbase, MySQL, and SAP DB as being three database that
>would be worth researching.  I am willing to assist anyone who wants to
>give it a try.  I have all the sources here myself.  I even have old
>University Ingres, Mariposa, and Postgres 4.2.

Ideas that could be used from other databases:

DB2
DB2 and others made their native API ODBC compatible so they can plug
in anywhere. If PostgreSQL moved to an ODBC compatible API, PostgreSQL
could be a plug compatible replacement for DB2. As DB2 has 33% of the
commercial market, 1% ahead of Oracle, you will get more exposure and
support from large corporations if you can replace DB2 for the smaller
projects that do not require DB2's multi-tier capabilities.

Companies writing applications for DB2 can instantly plug their
software in to open source environments.

People without ODBC would continue using the native API then suddenly
find they are using odbc functions anyway.

phpMyAdmin
phpPgAdmin is based on phpMyAdmin but uses some complicated SQL to
provide the same views of databases. I think PostgreSQL should
continue adding predefined views to the point where phpPgAdmin can use
the same simple SQL as phpMyAdmin because that covers a huge amount of
what people write as soon as they have a few databases and lots of
tables.

NT
MySQL and others install ODBC support as standard in NT. It is one of
the standard things to do on NT. Starting services, like Postmaster,
as a service is another. 

phpPgAdmin
Recommend phpPgAdmin as the interface instead of psql as phpPgAdmin is
far closer to what NT users already use. Even cheap little routers are
now using web interfaces instead of telnet because web interfaces make
the products accessible to about 100 times more people.

Documentation
MySQL has it's documentation as one big install instead of 5 separate
documents.  Even if PostgreSQL just had one big index in to the 5
separate documents, that would help.

Peter