Referential integrity is good. No doubt about it. But the purchase of InnoDB by Oracle last year is worrying, if Drupal is going to have any kind of dependence on that storage engine.
I wasn't suggesting we'd make Drupal core use InnoDB tables. If we start caring about referential integrity, MyISAM would continue to work -- and would probably continue to be the default table engine. The MyISAM storage engine simply ignores all statements that have to referential integrity could be a good reason to use InnoDB tables or PostgreSQL. Being sure that my data is in a consistent/correct state, matters a great deal for me.
I agree completely. In the year or so that I have been working with Drupal I can see indeed that "the Drupal way" is to solve our problems (and the need for referential integrity is key here) basing ourselves fully on GPL solutions; and in this sense the excellent PostgreSQL (a product some say even excels when compared to fully commercial products such as Oracle) perhaps should be brought more into the center of the picture, or elevated from its status as "also supported", this without demoting MySQL in any way. And I have put this philosophy into practice by filing issues where modules have not supported several PostgreSQL installations I have been responsible for.
Plus, you could also look at this from a different perspective. It could mean that -- all of a sudden -- Drupal works with Oracle (assuming they add InnoDB support to Oracle). You'll find that many serious DBAs (often Oracle users) care a lot about referential integrity.
excellent! Victor Kane http://awebfactory.com.ar