Zope database vs. MySQL

[Alex Rodioukov]

"Mich Hiker" <mich_hiker at nowhere.com> writes:

> I'm a new Zope user - developing web-based curriculum materials for a school
> district.  Can anyone tell me the advantages of configuring MySQL to use in
> tandem with Zope over using Zope's built-in database?  I've heard Zope is
> faster using it's own DB, but others have told me it is limited and I should
> go with MySQL.  Any thoughts?
> 
> Thanks.

Mich,

ZODB and MySQL are different things. ZODB is an object database which
Zope uses to store all of its objects. MySQL on the other hand is a
relational database. Those are very different beasts. To make a long
story short both should be used for appropriate tasks. RDBMS like
MySQL comes very handy when you need to store/retrieve large amounts
of data that can be normalized so you can benefit from using
relational model (indexes/views/joins).

I'm assuming that in your case we are talking about significant amount
of content (curriculum) which is not going to be changed very often
and can be fit into relational model easily. Then it might be more
efficient to use RDBMS to store it because RDBMS will normally
outperform ZODB on operations with such data.

You can't say that ZODB is limited compared to MySQL. Once again,
those are very different things. There are tasks for which MySQL (or
any RDBMS for that matter) would be totally unusable. On the other
hand, there are situations when one would prefer to use RDBMS for
storage because of the performance it might provide in given
circumstances.

You might want to check http://www.amk.ca/zodb/guide/ (ZODB/ZEO
Programming Guide) for more detailed information regarding the
subject.

A.R.

-- 
Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers.