[aclug-L] Re: Database question

[Steven Saner <ssaner@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, if you want to program in perl (a good choice) you will want to
learn about the DBI/DBD libraries. These are perl modules that act as
an interface to a database. If you use these libraries then you can
decided to change database backends sometime and with only minimal
changes, your frontend application written in perl can stay the
same. There are two parts to these libraries. The DBI module is the
interface to your perl program and is the same for all databases. The
DBD module is a lower level that is specific to the database that you
choose. It basically is an interface between the DBI module and the
database API. You can get these libraries for free at CPAN or other
perl module archiving places.

As to the database, I personally like Postgres. Then again, that is
the only one that I have any experience with. It is free and it is
very flexible. It also seems to be pretty stable and robust. It also
is getting pretty good documentation and there are a number of pretty
good mailling lists that you can discuss issues and problems. Beyond
that I am not able to comment on any comparisons to other databases.


On Sun, Nov 28, 1999 at 10:53:26AM -0600, Jonathan Hall wrote:
> I'm hoping to begin learning some database programming shortly.  I'm trying
> to decide which database to use, so am asking for some information.
> 
> I will be writing some database applications in Perl to keep track of some
> various customer information for the ISP I run.  (Account balances, payment
> history, time used online, addresses, etc, etc)
> 
> I'm thinking that an SQL database is the way to go.  I'm hoping someone can
> explain some of the advantages and disadvantages of some various SQL
> databases (or other types of databases, too).
> 
> My familiarity right now is really limited to mysql and posgresql.  My
> understanding thus far is that mysql is a bit more efficient, but not really
> "free" (It can be used for free, but cannot be redistributed with other
> software, right?).  Then posgresql is more featurefull, but also less
> scalable.
> 
> Are these understandings accurate?  What other factors do I need to take
> into consideration before deciding which database to do my programming with? 
> And are there other SQL implimentations or even non-SQL databases I should
> consider?
> 
> 
> -- 
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-- 
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Steven Saner                            SouthWind Internet Access, Inc.
ssaner@xxxxxxxxxxxxx                    Systems/Network Administrator
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