noob postgresql user question

[markw-FJ05HQ0HCKaWd6l5hS35sQ at public.gmane.org (markw-FJ05HQ0HCKaWd6l5hS35sQ at public.gmane.org)]

> Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:28:34 -0500
> From: Seth Gordon <sethg-Dp9fwfP21SfQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org>
> Subject: Re: noob postgresql user question
> To: discuss-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org
> Message-ID: <4925AC52.5010509-Dp9fwfP21SfQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> BTW, for small and medium-size database-backed Web sites, you might be
> better off using SQLite than PostgreSQL (or MySQL).  An SQLite database
> is just a file, and authentication is handled at the Unix layer: a
> process that can read the file can read from the database, and a process
> that can write to the file can write to it.  No muss, no fuss.
>
> (Also no stored procedures, no running your Web server and your database
> server on different machines, no authorization schemes along the lines
> of "user X can select from table A but not table B".)

I can't think of any worse advice to give anyone about databases. If I
could change one thing about the software/web environment is its attitudes
about SQL databases. I'm not saying that SQLite doesn't have its uses,
because I do use it on a number of projects, but it is not well suited for
an environment where multiple processes access a single file.

A good database, like Oracle, DB2, PostgreSQL, etc. easily and simply
solve a host of problems that a web site will need to solve without the
developer even knowing what they are and that they are being solved. Not
only that it provides a standardized way of solving additional problems
that arise.

Abandoning the use of a database because of a minor glitch is simply not
the right advice to give.