[Discuss] Opinions needed: wiki software

[richard.pieri at gmail.com (Rich Pieri)]

On Wed, 13 Mar 2013 13:57:43 -0400
Daniel Barrett <dbarrett at blazemonger.com> wrote:

> Hmmm... are you saying that the output of mysqldump cannot be
> reloaded into a database on a different architecture?  That would be
> a significant shortcoming of mysqldump.

I'm saying that you can't load the database file into MySQL on a
different architecture. Say you have MySQL 3.21 running on PowerPC (big
endian). You cannot take that database file and load it on MySQL 3.21
on AMD64 (little endian) and expect it to work assuming you can get
3.21 running on the AMD64 box. MySQL can be a real problem -- where
"problem" can be read as "effing pain in the ass -- if the host dies.

I know neither if MySQL dumps are endian or portable nor whether or not
this has changed over the versions. The MySQL documentation hasn't been
terribly forthcoming about endianness other than acknowledging broken
behavior in MySQL Cluster.


> Well yes, you can't "dump from the original system" if the original
> system is dead. :-) Fortunately his wiki is up and running.

It is this time around. What happens next time? There will be a next
time. There always is with volunteered servers.

I got lucky last year. I had to migrate the data from an old Mediawiki
installation when the host died. I got lucky in that a working, nearly
identical computer was retired shortly afterwards and I was able to
recover that data.

So, yeah, "just let me throw a wiki at it" is up there with "just let me
throw a database at it" on my list of bad ideas.

-- 
Rich P.