Oracle Has Adopted Boolean in 23ai and Postgresql Had It Forever

Posted2 months agoActive2 months ago

avi_vallarapu

15 points

18 comments

hexacluster.aiTechstory

calmmixed

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40/100

Database ManagementOraclePostgresql

Key topics

Database Management

Oracle

Postgresql

Oracle's adoption of a native BOOLEAN data type in 23ai is compared to PostgreSQL, which has had it forever, sparking discussion on database features and compatibility.

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Oct 29, 2025 at 10:51 AM EDT
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Discussion (18 comments)

Showing 18 comments

lenerdenator

2 months ago

2 replies

It'd be interesting to see what percentage of companies signed up with Larry stick with Larry out of sheer momentum. Sure, proprietary DBMSes can be faster and more efficient, but I can't imagine they'd be so much more efficient as to justify the license fee, so something else would have to be the justification.

SoftTalker

2 months ago

1 reply

It's for the support in most cases.

But last time I really used Oracle's RDBMS (10g era) it still had capabilities that no open source database had. If you really needed that, there wasn't an easy substitute. I'm sure Postgres has narrowed the gap by now.

ksec

2 months ago

3 replies

In 2010-2015 when HN and Twitter or all social media at the time thought Postgres would take over the DB world in 10 years time. And yet Postgres 2025 ( ignoring extensions ) is still not competing well with Oracle / MSSQL in 2010-2015. And ignoring politics or preference MySQL is still in many ways better than Postgres.

I am sure some day it would come. But it will likely take another 10 years. I just hope Neki + Oriole could come sooner.

ranger_danger

2 months ago

> MySQL is still in many ways better than Postgres

Source:

MangoToupe

2 months ago

Postgres has mostly taken over the world outside of enterprise.

Enterprise has its own needs largely irrelevant to the rest of us.

pphysch

2 months ago

Depends on what circles you are in. If you spend time on HN you see a lot of SQLite and Postgres discussion and building. I can't remember the last time I saw an interesting article here about using MySQL/Oracle/MSSQL. You use those because your CIO told you, like COBOL.

ch_123

2 months ago

1 reply

Any one of: the risk of a migration going wrong is too high, application or infrastructure compatibility issues, or the cost of retraining staff who work with the database to work with something else.

It is possible that there are simple solutions to these problems, but the perception that they are serious will turn companies away from a migration.

bux93

2 months ago

I think everybody has a horror story about code depending on the empty string and NULL being the same, silly stuff like that can trip up migrations.

The main reason I'd say is that there's no functional benefit to ripping out a database and replacing it, so there's always something more important to do that actually drives revenue.

I'd argue that postgres brings with it substantially lower risks in terms of license compliance/audits/price hikes. Not sure if that can drive a migration, but it should be reason enough to select open source for new projects.

phartenfeller

2 months ago

1 reply

This post is mostly an ad for their migration services?.

avi_vallarapuAuthor

2 months ago

Well, I think someone just read the last paragraph and calling it an Ad :)

animitronix

2 months ago

1 reply

I'm other news, Oracle is hot garbage and always will be.

Yeroc

2 months ago

2 replies

My experience has been the opposite. Oracle (the database) is actually a really solid product for the most part. Oracle (the company) is a different story. My eyes were really opened to some of the technical shortcomings in Postgres when we migrated from Oracle to Postgres a few years ago at $DAYJOB. Things like: a) global temp tables (there's an open source extension we had to use to fake this out), b) RLS (exists in PG but most functions that you might need to build on top perform badly), c) crashes in PG take out the whole database and a host of other smaller items. I'm not saying it wasn't worth it, but I wouldn't pretend Postgres is the best database either.

animitronix

2 months ago

1 reply

They lost me decades ago over the lack of auto incrementing PKs and having to cobble them together through a sequence and a trigger if I remember right. Seemed like utter nonsense. But I'll take your word that you got value out of the features you mentioned. The company side will forever prevent me from taking any of their products seriously though.

mulmen

2 months ago

I love Postgres and it is a shining example of how good software can be. Great job everyone, no notes.

BUT Oracle has some killer features that PG just doesn’t. The first that comes to mind is for-real multi-master. Close second is declaring partitions in the DDL of the table itself.

hyperman1

2 months ago

Oracle the database is the Apple of Enterprise. They have some best in class aspects, but also a lot of you're holding it wrong. They cost a lot and have a really arrogant culture. They both have a rabid reality-denying fanbase. The support is either fantastic if you ask a known question, or a hellscape of inconsistent answers and denials if you dont.

pjmlp

2 months ago

Meanwhile regarding distributed transactions....

palmotea

2 months ago

> 23ai

Oracle's tradition of tacking on $CURRENT_TREND suffixes to its DB versions is, has always been, and will always be cringy. What has it been? i for internet, g for grid, c for cloud, and now ai?

mulmen

2 months ago

Tom Kyte’s take on this was always ridiculous: https://asktom.oracle.com/ords/f?p=100%3A11%3A0%3A%3A%3A%3AP...

I’m glad to see this internet debate finally concluded.

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ID: 45747605Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 1:17:51 PM

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