Have you ever noticed how when this happens, it's practically always MySQL? (And when people complain about how badly relational databases perform and it turns out they don't know about indexes, transactions, or stored procedures, it's always MySQL...)
The non-MySQL RDBMS people that I know, know when their RDBMS of choice isn't the right tool for the job. Most of the MySQL people I know, seem to think that you just shove everything into the DB, and let Eris sort it out.
Because no other member of the pantheon is crazy enough to even look at that mess.
I suspect a network effect is in place where the vast majority of people whose entire understating of databases came from "PHP + MySQL For Dummies"-caliber books, blog posts, etc. use MySQL by default. A critical mass of them end up perpetuating bad advice, griping about how since MySQL hasn't worked well for them, all RDBMSs are junk, etc. Then, people looking for advice starting with databases read their tutorials. To some degree, MySQL probably brought this upon themselves[1], but now there's a feedback loop in place[2][3][4].
There seems to be a similar effect between Linux and BSD. I'm not going to claim that BSD is objectively superior in every regard, but on average, the BSD community seems to be quite a bit better informed than the Linux community. It may just be because Linux is so much more visible. People using BSD, Postgres, etc. probably already knew enough to evaluate their options, while the path of least resistance stays overrun with clueless newbies.
MySQL is a popular RDBMS starting point. Therefore, almost by definition, if you run into someone using a RDBMS but not really knowing WTF they are doing, they're quite often using MySQL.
If it wasn't MySQL, the same people would flock to, and poorly use, some other tool.
> If it wasn't MySQL, the same people would flock to, and poorly use, some other tool.
That's what I said, deeper in the thread. I don't think it's because MySQL is terrible, but almost all the people who don't really know databases start with MySQL by default, so the community surrounding it consistently has more people who are grossly misinformed than (for example) Postgres's.
