MySQL Version 4

[Paul Thomas]

On 16/03/2004 20:14 Wade Chandler wrote:
> I like PostgreSQL as far as it's simplicity and things go.  It's nice, 
> and there are some good front ends for it.  The one complaint I have 
> with Postgres is that it forks.
> 
> MySQL and Firebird use threads and Postgres forks.  Forking is ok, 
> unless you have many database connections.  The more connections the 
> more processes.  I noticed while profiling an application that every 
> connection alone was taking over 1MB of memory.  This based on the 
> process per connection gripe I have.

I suggest you read up on kernel VM management. You might alter your 
opinion of forking. And also remember that not all Unix's support threads 
and PostgreSQL has a tradition of running on many different platforms.


> So, Postgres, sure I like it, but as far as a major DBMS goes, I think 
> it is limited by it's memory usage.  That's just my opinion on the 
> matter.  However, it is a fact that it forks (forking takes more time 
> and more resources than threading).

Trivial compared to the overall query time. Any serious, high-volume app 
is likely to be using connection pooling anyway.

> One benefit in forking is the same reason Apache forks( memory leaks can 
> be minimized).  However, I think if a DBMS has that bad of a memory 
> leak....I won't use it.

A threaded server could just as easily have memory leaks.

> I like to advocate Firebird as much as possible.  It runs on many 
> platforms and seems to be pretty scalable as far as connections and 
> usage goes, and it has a very flexible license as well.

 From what I've read, Firebird sounds like a decent DB.


-- 
Paul Thomas
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