We're building a small-sized GIS Web application (as a school project) right now.
In terms of spatial database support and capabilities, which is better?
:)
thanks everyone!
A:
You're doing a school project for a company. The company is already established and have selected the technologies. Instead of trying to change their minds (a highly unlikely uphill battle at best), you should use what they have already invested in and consider it a learning opportunity. It doesn't matter what you think is better... they've already decided MySQL is better. Welcome to the "real world". It's not the answer you were looking for, but a fact of life. :-/
Timothy
2010-07-27 11:21:44
well, it so happened that only part of what you've said i believe is true. they're only using MySQL since they're used to using Joomla for their public Websites. Our concerns is really on the capabilities of MySQL for providing full support of spatial operations, etc.
ultrajohn
2010-07-27 11:26:24
Then it'd be better to phrase the question as such: "Client has already invested in MySQL. We need to do a geospacial app for them. Is MySQL capable of handling this type of data? If not, what alternatives exist and what would be the best way to present them to the client?" It already sounds you've got your mind made up. How did you come to the conclusion Postgresql is better? You would already know it's strong points to be able to persuade the client. Realistically though, they're not likely to install and manage another service just for your 1 application.
Timothy
2010-07-27 11:32:19
i really get your point and i appreciate what you're saying. i guess i'll have to rewrite my question. :) thanks...
ultrajohn
2010-07-27 11:37:17
@ultrajohn good luck!
Timothy
2010-07-27 12:47:52
+2
A:
Check it out for yourself, you know what you're looking for in your GIS-application: http://www.bostongis.com/PrinterFriendly.aspx?content_name=sqlserver2008_postgis_mysql_compare
In general PostGIS is much more mature and is very flexible. You can create any function, operator, index type or what so ever. It has (almost) no limits.
Frank Heikens
2010-07-27 12:17:39