[Discuss] Rob Conery's critique of MySQL?

[markw at mohawksoft.com (Mark Woodward)]

On 07/30/2012 05:28 PM, Derek Atkins wrote:
> Sure, and there's a lot to be said for using tools with which you are 
> comfortable. Like everything, it's a tool. The key is using the right 
> tool for the job. Just because you need an RDBMS does NOT imply that 
> PG is *the* right tool. It is *a* right tool. There are other choices, 
> and those other choices *are* valid. It all depends on the 
> requirements. Without knowing the requirements all other discussion is 
> purely rhetorical or religious, neither of which belong on a technical 
> list.

As a start, off the top of my head, I can describe one MySQL problem 
that absolutely eliminates it from consideration for a production database.

Suppose you have the "street map" database of the USA or some other very 
very large table, millions of rows. In production, your query 
performance is poor. You do some analysis and work out an index that 
betters your query performance substantially. You want to deploy that 
new index WITHOUT bringing down the site. Well, with MySQL, "create 
index" and "drop index" LOCK the tables as they are operating. LOCK THE 
TABLES. Think about that. In PostgreSQL, Oracle, and any "real" 
database, "create index" and "drop index" only impact performance in as 
much as any other transaction. When they are done, presto! your query is 
faster. Neat, huh?

That is just one problem that I consider a show stopper. You should 
watch the first 15 minutes of the video that started this message chain. 
In fact, I would wager, if you watched the whole thing, you'd never 
consider MySQL again.