McMaster University Creates Open Source eHealth Records System

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 06:02:24PM -0400, Jamon Camisso wrote:
> D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
>> | From: Dave Cramer <davec-zxk95TxsVYDyHADnj0MGvQC/G2K4zDHf at public.gmane.org>
>>
>> | > The python is being phased out as it was used only to manage Health
>> | > Canada's drug database dump.  This was also being stored in postgreSQL which
>> | > I believe a co-worker was changing to use MySQL.
>> | >
>> | >
>> |  Hmmm.... the notion that my health records are stored in MySQL is reason
>> | for me to find another doctor. Too bad your co-worker didn't move the MySQL
>> | to PostgreSQL
>>
>> Just to make this clear:  PostgreSQL is considered much better
>> technology than MySQL.
>
> Depends who you ask.
>
>> I'm not a DB person so I don't know enough to explain this well.  On
>> the other hand, several people who do know enough have independently
>> told me this.
>
> See above.
>
>> For business-critical work like OSCAR, using MySQL is probably a
>> serious mistake.
>
> If it's good enough for Yahoo! and Wikipedia, it's probably good enough  
> for the rest of us. Sure there may be bad implementations of it around  
> (no comment on oscar, haven't looked), but I'm sure if postgresql had  
> the same installation base, some people would scream bloody murder about  
> it too.
>
>> Here's a comparison from the PostgreSQL wiki (hence it might be
>> biased):
>>   http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Why_PostgreSQL_Instead_of_MySQL_2009
>> If you find it wrong, you can fix it.
>
> I'm biased towards postgresql as well (just because I like it is all),  
> but honestly, mysql powers some really large sites just like postgresql,  
> and if setup properly it is easily secured and maintainable.

I bet those sites have systems setup to ensure they never hit any of
the bad stuff.  They are also mostly read and not much write sites.
They likely also have lots of reduncancy and backups so that a database
corruption (if they are crazy enough to use myISAM) is unlikely to cause
any issues.

I also think the section size limit on wikipedia is a mysql limitation.

I am surprised that there are now 5 different development teams doing
mysql development.  Sounds like that could become quite the mess.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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