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Groups > comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc > #88

Re: New application developement with Delphi 2011

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On 2011-10-14, Sven P <svenp@non.commercial.sv> wrote:
>> Firebird IS free, and better and better supported by delphi. But IMHO any
>> real database (firebird, postgresql,oracle,mssql) is better than mysql, 
>
> We are also in a situation to choose some database for new, years to 
> live application. MySQL is one choice on our list, as you seem to face 
> it all over the internet. And looks like it's market share is growing 
> all the time, but we have no statistic nor common 'feeling' that 
> Interbase market share would be increasing.

True. I would caution though to only count mysql in cases where it is used
as an actual RDBMS, and forget where it is used as a store one level above a
filesystem. My old dbase system could fill that role if you whacked a SQL
interpreter in front of it.

> So, do you have any specific reasons why you consider MySQL not being 
> real database, but Interbase is?

Well, it just _got_ transactions in 4, so the standard answer is
unfortunately no longer valid. 

But I already gave two other reasons:
- the license situation is less clear as the competition (firebird,
  postgresql)
- the API breaks nearly every version which is a maintenance hazard.

Be also careful with claims of performance. From my last evaluation I seem
to recall that if you enabled certain features (like transaction) it would
only work with some storage backends, and that weren't usually the fastest.

Also performance broke down if the percentage writes increased, specially in
transaction circumstances.

There is also one major advantage, some webhoster might have it, since that
is what mysql is mostly used as dumb store for content management systems.

> I hope you could share some of your 
> opinions about this, what kind of reaseons there are.

See above.

> I have tried to find for instance benchmarks that compare MySQL against 
> other SQL databases, but I do not find any.

There used to be many. Most are rubbish, since they don't configure mysql
for normal RDBMS database use, but as a dumb store providing readonly data for some
PHP frontend.

> There really is some arguing if MySQL is totally Free or not. If I 
> understand it right, some 4.0 version (or something..) would be free 
> also for commercial applications. But the newer, or larger distribution 
> packets would not be free to distribute.

I tried to dig into it, found all kinds of conflicting statements, and
frankly simply gave up. Mostly because there was no compelling reason to use
Mysql and sort through the license issues

> Then there are also embedded MySQL support packages available to Delphi.
> http://www.devart.com/
> You do not use any of the MySQL engine code, but this Delphi written 
> component package connects directly to the MySQL database files. You 
> never have to pay MySQL royalties to anyone.
> For low scale apps this package at least _looks_ kind of interesting choice.

Afaik devart generally knows what they are doing, but they have such
packages for nearly all database type, so that is not a compelling mysql
reason too.

Historically, firebird/interbase is simply the most popular on Delphi,
however I had some powerpc machines to support at the time, so I ended up
with Postgresql because firebird was x86 only back then.  Never looked back.

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New application developement with Delphi 2011 alessandro f <a.fedelex@gmail.com> - 2011-10-13 04:19 -0700
  Re: New application developement with Delphi 2011 Marco van de Voort <marcov@toad.stack.nl> - 2011-10-13 11:39 +0000
    Re: New application developement with Delphi 2011 Sven P <svenp@non.commercial.sv..com> - 2011-10-14 11:09 +0200
      Re: New application developement with Delphi 2011 Marco van de Voort <marcov@toad.stack.nl> - 2011-10-14 20:35 +0000
  Re: New application developement with Delphi 2011 "Maarten Wiltink" <maarten@kittensandcats.net> - 2011-10-13 18:02 +0200

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