> we looked at mysql very carefully, tested it, benchmarked it...but like
> you said, it lacks some pretty essential rdbms features (triggers, sp,
> views to name a few).

One of the most painful omission is subqueries. They are promised but
sound like they are still a long way off. The workarounds shown in the
MySQL reference manual to make up for their lack are so convoluted as to
be unacceptable. Don't believe the author for one second when he says
subqueries are not necessary!

> the analogy that someone used when i asked them to compare the two was
> that mysql is a jeep, and firebird is a tank.

Actually, compared to MySQL-Max with BDB (transactions and page
level locking) and InnoDB (transactions, row-level locking, plus
some versioning) table handler support, I believe Firebird has a smaller
footprint... and it still has more essential features to
boot!!

> firebird has many people using it that are writing standalone complied
> apps in Delphi, for obvious reasons [borland integration]. i haven't
> heard of nearly as many people using it on the web as use mysql.

My worry is how long Firebird can continue to work with Delphi what
with Borland concentrating on MySQL 4.0 dbExpress support and trying
to push Interbase 6.5 and above. An open source Firebird dbExpress
driver will have to come out soon.

It does seem inevitable that Firebird and Interbase will end up becoming
2 different databases in the future... not sure whether
that's good or bad...