Code and Stuff

nosql:

Domas Mituzas about the MemSQL vs MySQL benchmark:

Though I usually understand that those claims don’t make any sense, I was wondering what did they do wrong. Apparently they got MySQL with default settings running and MemSQL with default settings running, then compared the two. They say it is a good benchmark, as it compares what users get just by installing standard packages.

That is already cheating, because systems are forced to work in completely different profiles.

The first paragraph of the post summarizes very well the general feeling about benchmarks:

I don’t like stupid benchmarks, as they waste my time.

I think that most of the generic benchmarks are stupid, even if some generic numbers are considered interesting by software engineers. Benchmarks designed around specific scenarios of applications will most of the time give more realistic results. But even those are difficult to design and account for all the configuration options, scaling, or changes of the use cases.

Original title and link: MySQL Is Bazillion Times Faster Than MemSQL (NoSQL database©myNoSQL)

I’m all for new technology, but lets leave the marketing hype behind and make decision against true benchmarks, no fluff statistics, and realistic expectations of your persistence layer. You don’t see carpenters yelling at each other about the brand of hammer they use.