Re: FN-FORUM Database Opinion Question
date posted 1st March 2001 02:26
> I would go for Perl or Php and MySQL on a stable unix/linux platform because:
>
> MySQL:
>
> - Is one of the fastest database engines currently available
>
> - Is rock solid even under high load - the MySQL server we use at
> www.photobox.co.uk has
> over a million records in several tables, and has been running for over six
> months without
> a reboot - including living through numerous updates of its control modules...
> Try that
> on an NT machine! Database accesses are typically over a million per day.
>
> - Is completely free - you even get the source code.
>
> - Is a piece of cake to install and use.
A small, up and coming database system is Valentina: www.paradigmasoft.com.
It's not your typical RDBMS, but is rather an object-relational system which
takes a bit of getting used to. It's main benefit is speed, where it's
around 200x faster than MySQL in some places (e.g. sort on 2 fields), and at
least 2-5x faster everywhere else (even single table, single field match),
and the bigger your structure, the more it pays off. At present it's not
multi-user, but it is multithreaded which means it can play nicely as a
single web server back end. Internal calculation functions cover all the
functions of MySQL, FileMaker Pro and Access, plus some others.
It's native on MacOS and Windows, there's a Java environment too (but relies
on JNI, so no Linux yet), a VB COM object, a plug-in for RealBasic (Mac &
Win runtimes), as a Director Xtra (Mac & Win), an AppleScriptable app, a
plugin for WebSiphon (kind of like PHP, Mac only) and C++ SDKs for Mac &
Windows, Linux coming soon, as are JSP and ODBC interfaces. Database files
are completely compatible across all versions and platforms without any
conversion.
Even inside Director (a generally slow environment), queries on a small
database (about 3000 records across 22 tables) are usually under a
millisecond or two.
It's being very actively developed: At present the work is concentrating on
making the SQL parser faster and SQL92 compliant, and after that it will
head for multi-user (with transaction support). The support is unparalleled
- I've had bug-fixed versions within 2 hours of reporting them.
On the down side, it's not free (about $300 per environment), and it's not
that easy to get it to talk to IIS and Apache at present until the SQL and
ODBC stuff is done; this is mainly due to its origins as a MacOS-only,
CD-ROM based, single-user product. It's also not that easy to export and
reimport because of the way the internal structures work, but that's
scheduled to improve too.
It may not be useful to you right now, but it's certainly worth keeping an
eye on. In the distance is the prospect of object (table) inheritance,
allowing far more flexible and efficient object-oriented structures than
regular relations can deliver, all the while maintaining SQL compatibility -
not something you're likely to have encountered.
I'm not associated with them in any way, other than as a very satisfied
user.
Marcus
--
Marcus Bointon
Synchromedia Limited: Putting you in the picture
[EMAIL REMOVED] | http://www.synchromedia.co.uk
