McMaster University Creates Open Source eHealth Records System

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 02:39:33PM -0400, William Muriithi wrote:
> Yanni,
> >>> 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.
> >
> > If Oscar is just a scheduling, billing and visit tracking app, then it's
> > probably not a big deal. If it were to be storing patient history and drug
> > treatment regimen, then I'd be worried that it's MySQL instead of
> > PostgreSQL.
> 
> I am going to avoid  getting on which of the two database is better.
> Its likely that mysql is inferior to  PostgreSQL for sure. However, I
> do think you come out too strong to be frank. Problem is, when you are
> that strong, people start wondering if you are being objective. Try
> pushing Linux to a Window user in that style and you will not go far.
> 
> Now, the other thing you can not take away from mysql, is it does some
> real critical stuff in real life. That history should ease your
> worries if it were to be used in medicine industry.  I think you can
> evaluate how much people trust a software by the dollar amount they
> entrust to such software. And google comes in very handy at that.
> Every cent that google makes is earned through mysql. I learned that
> while watching their QA methods on youtube. Just google it to be
> certain.
> 
> This is a quote from wikipedia..
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdWords
> 
> Begin quote
> The AdWords system was initially implemented on top of the MySQL
> database engine. After the system had been launched, management
> decided to use a commercial database (Oracle) instead. As is typical
> of applications simultaneously written and tuned for one database, and
> ported to another, the system became much slower, so eventually it was
> returned to MySQL. [14] The interface has also been revamped to offer
> better work flow with additional new features, such as, Spreadsheet
> Editing, Search Query Reports, and better Conversion Metrics[15]
> End quote
> 
> 
> Now, if mysql can make google billions, why would you assert it should
> not be trusted at all?

Worst thing that happens if mysql fails for google?  They loose some
add money.  Their search users won't care, the search engine still works.

Simply not a big deal.  No comparison.

There are good technical reasons to avoid mysql, although you can work
around them with enough effort.  But better databases exist, so why
bother with mysql at all?

-- 
Len Sorensen
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