in 02002–02004 i worked at a startup shipping an on-premises saas network management system (i.e., buy our appliance and install it) built on postgres, after a previous startup using mysql. even then postgres was a perfectly fine database; at the time there wasn't much reason to prefer postgres or mysql over each other unless you were running at massive scale, where even oracle couldn't hold a candle to mysql's readslaves
99% of the time i'm using a sql database it's because i don't care about cool features tho. i mean window functions and json and recursive ctes are definitely cool but my orm isn't gonna use them
the startup got bought out a couple years later, so i guess it was successful, but my options were so diluted they weren't worth much
the huge difference in my experience was going from no credible gratis sql rdbms in 01993 or so, to msql in 01994 (gratis but far from libre), to mysql in 01996 (gratis but not quite libre) and postgresql (libre!) in the fuzzy period 01996–02000. postgres didn't support sql until 01996 but for reasons i don't remember wasn't really a viable alternative to mysql until about 01999. i don't remember exactly when mysql started offering a real free-software license but i think it was maybe 02000 or 02001; the lawsuit over nusphere's infringement of mysql's gpl was 02002
maybe gumby can weigh in with his experience trying to sell people on an enhanced postgres fork supporting cross-data-center oltp at zembu (eventual-consistency-like multisite performance but without the eventual consistency, which is to say, inconsistency). other founders were ncm and ian (lance) taylor: http://web.archive.org/web/20010617143323/http://www.zembu.c...
nowadays i think sqlite is kind of the big competitor; lower write performance, higher read performance (except for very complex queries where its simple execution model is inadequate), and much lower hassle
probably all these non-column-store designs are obsolete; i'm curious whether there's a column-based sql database that offers the same degree of hassle-freeness as sqlite or even postgres
99% of the time i'm using a sql database it's because i don't care about cool features tho. i mean window functions and json and recursive ctes are definitely cool but my orm isn't gonna use them
the startup got bought out a couple years later, so i guess it was successful, but my options were so diluted they weren't worth much
the huge difference in my experience was going from no credible gratis sql rdbms in 01993 or so, to msql in 01994 (gratis but far from libre), to mysql in 01996 (gratis but not quite libre) and postgresql (libre!) in the fuzzy period 01996–02000. postgres didn't support sql until 01996 but for reasons i don't remember wasn't really a viable alternative to mysql until about 01999. i don't remember exactly when mysql started offering a real free-software license but i think it was maybe 02000 or 02001; the lawsuit over nusphere's infringement of mysql's gpl was 02002
maybe gumby can weigh in with his experience trying to sell people on an enhanced postgres fork supporting cross-data-center oltp at zembu (eventual-consistency-like multisite performance but without the eventual consistency, which is to say, inconsistency). other founders were ncm and ian (lance) taylor: http://web.archive.org/web/20010617143323/http://www.zembu.c...
nowadays i think sqlite is kind of the big competitor; lower write performance, higher read performance (except for very complex queries where its simple execution model is inadequate), and much lower hassle
probably all these non-column-store designs are obsolete; i'm curious whether there's a column-based sql database that offers the same degree of hassle-freeness as sqlite or even postgres