Thank you Pat and Joe for your comments.
As far as my thoughts are concerned, MySQL needs SP and triggers so it
won’t loose DBAs to PostgreSQL.
I asked the same question on my MySQL blog
(MySQL Consulting and NoSQL Consulting: MySQL DBA: "Entirely uninterested in fancy features like stored procedures, triggers, and the like" : David Heinemeier Hansson)
to database administrators and got some very interesting replies:
Markus, a recognized MySQL DBA put the opinions of many MySQL DBA’s in
excellent words on his site:
db4free.net blog: "Entirely uninterested in fancy features like stored procedures, triggers, and the like"
I present a quote from above:
"MySQL simply needs features like Stored Procedures, User Defined
Functions, Triggers etc. to be taken serious on the database market! So
long has MySQL been criticized for not providing them - now as they
have been introduced, it would be stupid to criticize MySQL for
providing them.
MySQL has a very good chance to get as advanced as any other database
system without losing it’s simplicity. I don’t think that performence
will suffer a lot in the long run, because performence optimizations
will certainly go on forever and will certainly overcome the speed
decreases that may come from implementing new features. On the other
hand, the other database systems will hardly ever have a chance to
become as convenient to work with as MySQL (of course, people will
always like what they are used to - if somebody has always worked with
another product, he’ll be more comfortable with this than with another
-
but for new users, MySQL is probably less painful to start with than
the others).
The great thing is - people can still work with MySQL 5.0 the way
that they were used to with earlier versions. They can decide whether
to use the new features, or not. And that’s exactly the right way for
MySQL! Continuing to get as advanced as possible without breaking
downward compatibility - where possible (and useful)."
Another anonymous commenter said that if it wasn’t for the SP and
triggers he wouldn’t have converted from MSSQL to MySQL.
While Rails is a wonderful framework, and Ruby an excellent language,
I believe there is a strong need for these features. Somethings are
just better left to the database. For example, I can think of many
situations, where the DRY can be applied in a better way by using
triggers.
– Frank
Pat M. [email protected] wrote: On 2/10/06, Joe wrote:
I’m sort of coming around to that way of thinking. I switched from MySQL
to PostgreSQL about two years ago and loved it. But now it DOES sound
appealing to just handle stuff in Ruby/Rails instead of switching to
pgsql for sprocs, constraints, triggers, etc. and then handling db
errors that arise from them.
This is one case where I have no problem being unDRY. The fact is
that for the apps I write, my Rails app isn’t going to be the only
point of access to the DB. Most of the time the DB is there long
before the Rails app anyway. So there are two ways of handling things
that need checks, in my mind:
- Write code to handle errors that pop up from the DB
- Code the checks into the application itself
Sometimes it’s easier and makes more sense to do #1. In Rails, you
can achieve nearly all of the checks with one line of code, and
everything else with just a few. You never even get to a point where
the database would create errors.
Anyway this is getting slightly OT. Basically I just mean that I’ve
got no problem having two layers of cleverness. It’s necessary for me
to have a clever database, and easy for me to have a clever Rails app.
The Rails app never sees the DB cleverness, which only exists because
other languages and people that access the DB aren’t as bright.
Pat