Re: SQL standards in Mysql

[Steve Crawford <scrawford(at)pinpointresearch(dot)com>]

Dean Gibson (DB Administrator) wrote:
> ...For example, I think phpBB is the only major message board software 
> that supports PostgreSQL (see 
> http://www.phpbb.com/about/features/compare.php ), and in fact has for 
> some time.  Of course, they have a DB abstraction layer (wow, what an 
> concept!), which allows them to easily support a number of DBs.  Of 
> course, what does that tell you about the level of design and 
> professionalism of phpBB versus the others?...

In most cases it tells me is that the developers are willing to limit 
themselves to the lowest-common-denominator of features among the 
supported databases in exchange for the ability to run on a variety of 
backends. This is a perfectly legitimate decision for products where 
only basic database features are necessary.

What I find scary is complex products that have been "ported" from 
something like mySQL to PostgreSQL. This often means that the product 
has severely limited its use of appropriate PostgreSQL features in order 
to remain compatible with the other backends.

Cheers,
Steve