RailsConf - Day 3

Day 3 was the last day for the exhibitions. So we again had good attendance at our booth. One thing that we noted was that all people tend to use MySQL as their database of choice just because everyone else is using it! Many did not understand the difference between MySQL and PostgreSQL and hence why they should use PostgreSQL in the first place. All of us tried to explain as best as we could but here is a link which explains in greater detail as to why PostgreSQL is a much better choice as compared to MySQL.

The breakfast and the lunch facilities during the conf were excellent and the Portland Convention Center is a huge facility indeed. But since there were so many attending the conference, it was pretty hard to get onto the wireless network there. One thing though that gave me some sort of a complex during the conf was that almost everyone who came to the conf were using the Apple Macs! I felt out of place with my lenovo thinkpad there :). Also many companies like Sun, Thoughtworks held a lucky draw and the winners were awarded free Mac Airbooks towards the close of the third day! Yup, I did enter but was not lucky this time around. Maybe next year. I did get my share of free tshirts though ;)

We ended the day by having dinner at a sports bar where I introduced Denis, George to some cool Ultimate Fighting Championship fights :). Denis refused to believe that it is a sport as he likened it to dog fights.

Saturday was also the occasion of the Rose Starlight Parade and Marathon so there were a lot of people out on the streets. It was good for me to see families sitting along side the road waiting for the marathon and the parade to pass by. I stayed around for a while to cheer up the guys participating in the marathon, but as it got a bit chilly later, I prefer to watch some of the action from the comfort of my hotel room before retiring to bed. Final day coming up tommorrow!

SUNshine makes MySQL happy

Well, well, well... my last posting mentioned a link on slashdot where there was an announcement about MySQL mentioning intentions of close sourcing some of the stuff for their paying customers. As expected, there was a lot of hue and cry over it. Guess some in the PostgreSQL camp were happy rolling their I-Told-You-So eyes too.
It turns out that SUN and others in their camp have paid heed to all and again this link on slashdot says that they WON'T be close sourcing afterall. Interesting stuff this.. I wonder how many times companies have even been influenced in such an OPEN manner to do something of this sort. But GOOD I say :)

Don't let the SUN go down on MySQL

There is a posting on /. about Sun deciding to close source some parts of MySQL. Hmmm, after paying 1 Billion Dollars in cold hard cash, its expected that Sun will try out some experiments to try and generate a revenue stream. But guess this will rub existing free users off the wrong way atleast initially as a knee-jerk reaction. Guess it will be good for PostgreSQL though :).

But to be fair, its good to see Marten Mickos (previously CEO of MySQL and now SVP at Sun) try and put out reasons for this latest move. All in all, this bodes well for my favourite DB - PostgreSQL :)

Note: The views expressed above are entirely my own personal views.