[CS-FSLUG] Church Management Software

[Micah Yoder]

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 7:55 PM, David Aikema <david at aikema.net> wrote:

>  But then you have to worry about the security of Postgresql
>  (passwords, security updates), remembering to install/uninstall
>  postgresql all the time, dealing with the possibility that there's
>  already a database server running somewhere, starting/stopping the
>  database server, or that this may be a shared machine, etc.

I don't think any of that would be a big deal.  If this is running on
Linux, we can just grab the PostgreSQL that is included with the
distro, and it will get automatic security updates.  PG is also fully
supported in Windows in case we want to allow people to go that way.

>  I tend to like the possibilities of SQlite - http://www.sqlite.org/ -
>  public domain, small footprint, and in use by a lot of well known
>  companies.  Another potential issue would appear to be be ease of
>  backup - SQLite works by copying files - other databases may require
>  use of export tools as the binary format may be incompatible between
>  platforms.

There is a lot to be said forSQLite, it's a nice little system.
Backup needn't be difficult with Postgres though, you include a script
to dump the DB and another to restore it.  Also it's a matter of
whether SQLite has enough functionality.  It probably does, but PG has
more, and taking full advantage of it would almost certainly make our
coding easier.

>  A DB abstraction layer gives you the option of either.

And forces you to use the least common denominator of their feature sets.

>  And... speaking of proprietary stuff ... how much do you want to use
>  proprietary features of any database?  (I don't think that a church is
>  likely to impose any sort of high load, that the advanced features
>  might be useful for).

Well I'd argue that PG being open source has no "proprietary
features."  Given the project's track record though, I think it's safe
to rely on it.  They've been going well over 10 years and development
and the strength of the community are only accelerating.

Also its "advanced features" aren't just for performance.  They could
make for ease of coding as well.