As we all know, patches speak louder than words in terms of affecting change in the Drupal. To take a step in this direction, here's an issue: http://drupal.org/node/212918 The attached patch makes MySQL use its ANSI mode. I marked it as a feature request for 6.x, I'll let someone else decide if this should really be a 6.x bug, or a 7.x feature. This should move core (but especially contrib module) developers in the right direction at least by breaking obviously non-ANSI-compliant SQL. I don't see any obvious problems with core when applying this patch with PHP 4.4, MySQL 5.0, but my testing is minimal so far. -Peter

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jean-Michel Pouré <jm@poure.com> To: development@drupal.org Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:42:09 +0100 Subject: Re: [development] So why we do support postgresql? Dear friends,

...

That is all well and good from "it runs" ( i.e. unit testing, functionality is OK), but when you try to optimize for large datasets or complex queries, you often have to do things that are database engine specific.

This is a classic clash been theory and reality.

Sorry, not my opinion. MySQL employs non-standard SQL queries.

If the code was written primarily for PostgreSQL using tables, standard sql queries and views, it would run smoothly on MySQL and most databases like Oracle and DB2.

This is because PostgreSQL is the standard SQL99 implementation. Very few things differ in PostgreSQL.

The converse is not true.

...

The bottleneck is how many developers know PostgreSQL AND care about Drupal using PostgreSQL, and willing to put in the effort to keep in tandem with MySQL so PostgreSQL does not lag behind.

I recommand using pgAdmin III graphical client, which is the standard graphical interface for PostgreSQL.

Also, log and analyse all SQL queries and plans.

Like in my HOWTO : PostgreSQL query optimisation => http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=29292

It is pretty hard against MySQL. Sorry, this is the opinion of most people designing databases. I may change my opinion when a better transactional support is added with better SQL99 suppport.

Besides, I find Drupal sometimes slow on my testing installation. I will try to debug SQL queries written for MySQL and will report them back.

Kind regards, Jean-Michel