MySQL vrs SQLite

[Michael]

>In short, sqlite is a *very* capable little database, as long as it only
>ever has one user. More than one user, and it'll block access so only one
>user may access it at a time.
>  
>
It does block though - it doesn't loss data if more than one program 
tries to access it at once? In this case I have multiple programs that 
need to write to, and read from, the db in a reliable way. Most of the 
actions should be small so I don't think blocking should pose a big 
question but data loss would be very bad.

>SQLite treats all data as strings, but note that it does some internal
>"typecasting" such that a column of numbers will be sorted numerically. You
>will need to implement your own data conversion though. It's usually as
>trivial as a simple mapping containing conversion functions like (from the
>Roundup source):
>  
>
I always type cast, and otherwise clean, all data coming in and out of 
my db functions anyway (for security reasons) so that isn't a problem. 
Since SQLite stores data as strings that means data such as numbers will 
take up more space than in a db such as MySQL?