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Once you are stuck with MySQL it is very, very, very hard to get an organization to switch--not only from a technical standpoint but a political one. I bet you

Once you are stuck with MySQL it is very, very, very hard to get an organization to switch--not only from a technical standpoint but a political one. I bet you any competent engineer who knows their shit about DB in those companies regrets using MySQL. I bet their code is full of hacks, crappy schemas, and all kinds of work arounds because they chose mysql. I've seen it in every company that uses MySQL. The lengths people go to avoid schema changes is astonishing. It is much, much better to start with a real database like PostgreSQL because whatever you pick is going to be what your entire org uses from now until eternity.

evanelias 7y ago
Cool, so I'm going to assume that means your answer to my question of "Do you have much direct experience with high-volume OLTP database workloads?" is "no". Given your "bet" as well as comments about schema change difficulty, I'm also going to assume you did not click through to my profile...
- evanelias 7y ago
  And to clarify, I'm not saying that to toot my own horn. My point was, I primarily work on open source schema management and related consulting. I talk to large companies about MySQL schema changes literally every single day. The comment about "the lengths people go to avoid schema changes is astonishing" simply does not gel with reality among large-scale MySQL users. As for the random blind accusations about bad code, engineer incompetence, etc that's just rude, mean-spirited, and misinformed. I personally know a lot of exceptional database engineers who work on MySQL-related infrastructure at the companies I listed above. Why crap on other people's work that you haven't seen and know nothing about?
  - ngrilly 7y ago
    Agreed. I think MySQL is still dragging the bad reputation it got in the early 2000s, which is unfair considering how much it improved. And I write that I someone that used to hate MySQL for all its shortcuts. I have one app in production based on MySQL. I have been thinking of switching to PostgreSQL for years. But the truth is that, the more MySQL improves, the less the switch is justified :) The engineering effort put by Google, Facebook, Oracle, etc. in MySQL and InnoDB during the last ten years is impressive.

evanelias 7y ago

Cool, so I'm going to assume that means your answer to my question of "Do you have much direct experience with high-volume OLTP database workloads?" is "no". Given your "bet" as well as comments about schema change difficulty, I'm also going to assume you did not click through to my profile...

evanelias 7y ago
And to clarify, I'm not saying that to toot my own horn. My point was, I primarily work on open source schema management and related consulting. I talk to large companies about MySQL schema changes literally every single day. The comment about "the lengths people go to avoid schema changes is astonishing" simply does not gel with reality among large-scale MySQL users. As for the random blind accusations about bad code, engineer incompetence, etc that's just rude, mean-spirited, and misinformed. I personally know a lot of exceptional database engineers who work on MySQL-related infrastructure at the companies I listed above. Why crap on other people's work that you haven't seen and know nothing about?
- ngrilly 7y ago
  Agreed. I think MySQL is still dragging the bad reputation it got in the early 2000s, which is unfair considering how much it improved. And I write that I someone that used to hate MySQL for all its shortcuts. I have one app in production based on MySQL. I have been thinking of switching to PostgreSQL for years. But the truth is that, the more MySQL improves, the less the switch is justified :) The engineering effort put by Google, Facebook, Oracle, etc. in MySQL and InnoDB during the last ten years is impressive.