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
+------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
| Thomas Micro Systems Limited | Software Solutions for Business |
| Computer Consultants | http://www.thomas-micro-systems-ltd.co.uk |
+------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
