PostgreSQL vs MySQL? SEC: UNCLASSIFIED

[Cox, Neil]

I've been using both Postgres and MySQL in a production (ie for clients)
envirohnment for around two years now.

I'm also on Oracle DBA.

I have never had Postgres corrupt data.  MySQL has, but that was a
combination of its kludginess and me not reading the doco that explained the
kludge with enough care.

My feeling on the subject is that for a large mission critical database I'd
go for Oracle. Reluctantly, but it still has an edge on Postgress and MySQL.

For a database where ACID transactions were important, or updates/inserts
were frequent but Oracle was too expensive/overkill (most of the time) I'd
use Postgres.

For a simple system requiring speed, and not involving frequent
updates/inserts I'd consider MySQL.

Generally I've found MySQL a pain to work with, but this is perhaps because
I started with Oracle and brought some assumptions along.

You are correct that many sub-selects can be rewritten, but sometimes a
sub-select is actually the best solution for a problem.  Case/select/elif
statements can always be rewritten as if/else statements, recursion can
usually be unrolled to loops, error handling can be done using gotos instead
of exceptions.  Doesn't make the alternative the right choice.