Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Microsoft and its unfair selling techniques


    Microsoft, did it again: left its users alone with new versions of its programs.

    I am referring for example to Internet Explorer 9, new Version of Windows Live Messenger, etc....
Rather than make it compatible with its own older O.S., they just require you to upgrade (and BUY) another version of their O.S.

    This is TOTALLY UNFAIR! Specially taking into account the fact that ANY of its O.S. is FREE, then, the result is that you pay for an O.S. and be left alone in some time if you don't pay again (and thus, forced to pay another O.S.).

    What demonstrate this kind of behavior from Microsoft?
  • They does not value its own customers: you pay, and whenever they say they won't support you, they won't and you can't complain (it is in their TOS).
  • If for any cause, a security risk is discovered or an important upgrade in other program is made, if they don't release it for their O.S., you can't simply have it...
    What means this to me?
  • It makes me happy to be a Linux ONLY user since 7 years now, without using any software from Microsoft.
  • I don't get fooled by a company which requires me to pay for an limited product, full of security holes (in its long history), and full of bugs, and, of course, trapped to pay to them every X years forcedly!
Conclusion: Will you get fooled by Microsoft?

Dropping MySQL, and adopting PostgreSQL

    Finally I had the time to dig a bit this issue, and finally, decided to drop all MySQL support in favor of PostgreSQL.

    Despite PostgreSQL is not as known nor as used as MySQL, it has MANY advantages:
  • Referential Integrity: MySQL's default engine (MyIsam) does NOT support any kind of referential integrity, which could lead to corruption and inconsistencies in DB.
  • On the other hand, the other MySQL's engine which does support referential integrity (InnoDB) is very much slow. In my case, only to create a table with a referenced FOREIGN KEY to another table takes ~1 second! And cascade deleting/checking/updating also takes much more time then postgre takes.
  • Extended Data Types: With PostgreSQL you don't have only a few data types like you have in MySQL. With PostgreSQL you have, cidr (for IP addresses), money, and other data types, as well as user defined data types.
  • Prepared Statements: As stated in my previous post, MySQL had support for prepare statements, but you couldn't not give a name to them (unless you use my class, or code it by yourself), but with PostgreSQL, you can even give natively a string name! (even inside client).
  • Performance: In my case, with my databases, and googling a bit, you can see that PostgreSQL has much better overall performance than MySQL.
    To sum up, I though that since Oracle bought MySQL, it would be improved a lot, but it seems only a commercial action rather than a really interest in MySQL from Oracle.