If you want to see the WordPress community's own kind of FUD at work, have a look at the answers to this WP support topic (a questioned originated on Textdrive's forum). A few gems, and a few interesting insights on the inner workings of a relational (R as in InnoDB) database.
As far as I can tell, WordPress is better than most tools when it comes to performance.
I lack words to tell you how much I hate MySQL, its pathetic features, and its pathetic performance.
Accessible by date order does not mean that they are added to the table top. More likely the bottom I would think.
performance-wise, you should be comparing how the DB handles a bunch of immensily complex stored procedures.
MySQL is a very fine piece of technology and a very fast database, the same cannot be said for WP's code (see also this), db design and queries. For simple things (INSERTS and SELECTS) MySQL often beats the big names hands down (and yes, I have direct experience at work dealing with a 1million rows a day app).
Must… resist… replying…
Oh well, my will is just not strong enough.
Bah, humbug! I’ll just assume you’re discussing MySQL5 and the simplest SELECT statement. ;)
When I read stuff liek that, I alwas have to think of this timeless article:
Why I hate advocacy
http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2000/12/advocacy.html
It must be something that is inehrent in the humane psyche.
Denis, I was discussing MySQL 4.0 and not-so-simple SELECTs (ofc simple SELECTs are faster).
MySQL + a decently tuned InnoDB backend are hard to beat for speed, though a lot depends on how weel-designed your DB/indexes/queries are (which was the point of my post).
Sure, but then again, you quoted me out of context: I was discussing the poor performance in a context MySQL 3 compatible code with little or no relevant indexes.
As for MySQL’s performance before verson 5 (which I’ve yet to try), it is lacking as far as I can tell except for the simplest queries. I sometimes see MySQL do in seconds what TSQL does in tenths of seconds, if only because the first requires a couple of trips to the server because it cannot process a batch of SQL statements.
@Sencer: Yes, advocacy is inherent to human psych. And were the author of your article better informed, he’d know that us-versus-them is the best way to be an effective advocate, and that passion convinces a hell lot more than rational reasoning. ;)
Denis, not to turn this into a flamewar but you did not mention MySQL 3 anywhere, and as far as I know textdrive (where the person requesting support has his blog) runs 4.1.
As I said, MySQL is very fast for simple statements on well-designed tables, and you should not need anything complex for most web applications, especially a blog.
As for advocacy, IMHO the kind of advocacy we are discussing may alienate more people than it manages to convince, and does a great disservice to an excellent piece of free software like MySQL.
Thanks for all the comments! We are trying to build the fastest database on the planet.
Here is some info on that topic if you are interested:
http://www.mysql.com/it-resources/benchmarks/
Marten Mickos, CEO, MySQL AB
Well, I never imagined to see a comment from the MySQL CEO on this blog. :)
Marten, thank you for your comment and for a great DB!