Josh: In terms of features MySQL isn't adding anything that PostgreSQL doesn't already have, and hasn't had for years. We had transaction support 10 years before MySQL, mainframe ports 2 years before MySQL, and support for all types of subselects for the last 2 years, which MySQL still doesn't have working.
Robert: MySQL used to be faster than PostgreSQL across the board, but we've erased that difference and now it's only faster in certain corner cases at lower load levels.
Josh: The only things that MySQL has that we don't are ease of database admin for simple databases, which is something we're gradually incorporating, and a native Windows port, which we'll have this summer.
Oh, and they have a paid marketing department, which I suppose gives them a certain edge (*wry grin*).
5. What innovations this decade have to offer to the database technology in general? What kind of features that no RDBMS has today are you thinking that would be great to have in the future?
Neil: POSTGRES was originally conceived as an academic research project into ORDBMS technology, so we already have some experimental features that other database systems either don't have, or have only recently implemented (for example, inheritance, query rewriting and user-defined data types). More recently, the PostgreSQL development team has been more focused on providing a better production-quality RDBMS implementation, rather than working on implementing additional experimental features. Once most of this work has been finished (and we've done a lot already), I think there will be more interest in adding additional exotic features.
That said, there are also projects that use PostgreSQL for their own ends, to implement some interesting and often unique functionality. Two examples are the Telegraph project at Berkeley, and the PostGIS project.
Josh: Personally, I don't expect any flashy new database features or theories in the next decade. We've had a SQL specification since 1989, but up until recently it was more of a "holy grail" and not something one expected to actually follow due to hardware and software limitations in databases. Now the tech has finally caught up, and we have a chance to really exercise all of the ideas contained in the relational model and the SQL spec, in order to build really good databases. It's an era of refinement rather than one of sweeping innovation.
Now, I do expect that object and OODBMSs will refine themselves and develop an open standard within the next decade, so they can become commercially viable as an alternative approach to data storage. But I also tend to think that the creators of OODBMSs will find that they are useful for *very* different things than those for which RDBMSs have traditionally been used.
6. Are you planning a "native" Windows port for PostgreSQL (not through Cygwin that is)? If yes, are there plans for a C# programming interface?
Josh: The native Windows port is due this summer. While we're unlikely to adopt C# for the database itself, I'd be very surprised if some member of our community *doesn't* add C# as a function-writing language.
Robert: Plus we already have a .net data provider project for connecting to PostgreSQL via .Net.
- "PostgreSQL Interview, Part I"
- "PostgreSQL Interview, Part II"
