--- In ib-support@y..., "Alan McDonald" <alan@m...> wrote:

> Referential integrity and other constraints.
> Subselects
> Unions
> Views
> Triggers

And when they get added? These are in MySQL's "Things to be done
real soon" and "Things that must be done eventually." This is a
project that has proven its ability to fasttrack because of the huge
user base. That list is only going to dwindle until there is nothing
significant you can point out that Firebird has over MySQL (I'm
hoping that MySQL stays a bit loony in the record-locking department
so at least FB will have that advantage). I don't so much like MySQL
as envy its spirit. It's filling the void that Firebird should be
filling. How many revenge films are there where the hero's
achievements are usurped by the bad guy and the hero spends the whole
film trying to expose the truth? That's what being a Firebird dba is
like!

Getting into a feature by feature comparison is off target. It's
the 'buzz' thing that I'm frustrated about. Yes, I can spout a list
of reasons why Firebird beats other RDBMSs, including -- very much
including -- MS SQL (what, you actually want to control the order of
your trigger firing? Not with Uncle Bill's Sybase). But nobody is
listening. When MySQL announce views or ref integrity or triggers,
for millions of users it will be as if those guys invented
it. "Finally we have views just like Oracle," they will crow. There
will be news releases; there will be cheers; there will be dancing in
the streets. Will anyone listen when you point out that Interbase
had em years ago? Nope. Multigenerational before SQL Server? Nope.

So who's fault is it that nobody knows that stuff, that nobody knows
about Firebird? It's nobody's fault because nobody (apart from the
devs at conferences) has made a big effort to educate the db public.

Okay, so MySQL and Firebird going head to head is only happening in
*my* head. There is no real-world competition going on between the
two. And that's a darn shame. Because if there were, there's a good
chance db developers currently working on MySQL might switch or
contribute to Firebird too. How could they resist? Instead of
reinventing the wheel (views, subselects) they could be working on
new, innovative features. Mind you, we'd get them stuck into things
like security and internal replication first, naturally.

Finally, this thread is no disrespect to the core Firebird devs. I
have nothing but admiration for you people. Firebird is here solely
because of you guys, end of story. (By the way, where did Claudio
disappear to?). I just wish there were a lot more of you :-)

But I'm not here to backslap. IMHO the Firebird community is too
full of parochial platitudes and well-meaning sentiment (this thread
of mine a perfect example). All this talk is firing me up, and I
don't really want to be fired up. When I get fired up, I get mad.
When I get mad, I take action. If Firebird 2 gets me half as excited
as FB1... well, I may go a little bit postal. Now that I consider
myself unfettered by the restraints of the civilized firebird
community, I just might put on my stomping shoes and go make some
noise elsewhere than here in this respectable, quiet neighbourhood.

"It hath made me mad."

Regards,
Andrew Ferguson