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MiniSQL versus MySQL: Conclusions - by Brian Carr
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Brian P. Carr was employeed by IBM Research and consulted with the OS/2 design team from 1984 to 1987 and has used OS/2 since 1988. David M. Carr is a blossoming young programmer who assisted with with the graphics layout.

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Summary: Brian concludes the review with his final thoughts

If your database is expected to be very small (no tables exceeding 1,000 records) and you will be simply storing and retrieving data with no serious analysis of the data, then licensing fees could be the deciding factor between mSQL and MySQL, both of which could do the job. If licensing fees worked out to be the same, mSQL would probably be the better solution as its installation and interfaces are a little simpler.

If you will have medium (10,000) to large (100,000 or greater) tables or will be doing cumulative reports/analysis on the data, MySQL or a heavy weight relational database such as DB2 are your best options. DB2 handles very large databases (million or more records) very naturally and is probably the best option in this case. Otherwise, your primary decision could be based on the amount of time you expect to be spending developing database code (SQL) versus the expected licensing fees (at whatever rate you value your time at). If the development time exceeds the licensing fees by a factor of ten, then I recommend you get a heavy weight relational database. The increased reliability, better documentation, improved error codes, complete functionality (no missing functions), and consistent performance should more than cover the increased licensing fees over the life of the project. I would also recommend you closely look at DB2 as the database of choice if you go for a heavy weight relational database as I have found it to be the most reliable, fastest, and most complete of the relational databases (and, surprisingly, it seems to be increasing its market share based on its technical merits).

miniSQL 2.0.4.1

by Hughes Technologies
download from OS/2 Netlabs (238K)
Registration: US$250

MySQL 3.21.33

by T.c.X.
download from The Hobbes Archive (1.3M)
Registration: Free

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Copyright © 1999 - Falcon Networking ISSN 1203-5696
February 1, 1999