Question: We all have our favourite database. If you look objectively at your chosen database, what drawbacks does it have and what could be improved?

The rules:

* One reply per drawback with;
* a short description of the limitation, followed by;
* a more detailed description, an explanation of how it could be done better or an example of another technology that does not have the same limitation.
* Do not diss any database that you haven't used extensively. It is easy to take potshots at other technologies but we want to learn form your experience, not your prejudice.

Answer: 
**Database** MySQL  

**Defect** Server will start up with damaged tables  

**Description**  

If MySQL has a damaged table - from either being killed during a write or some other failure - it will quite happily start up and allow the user to carry on as if the problem does not exist. Granted it will produce some error messages in the log, but from my experience this doesn't help when you're trying to figure out why an application is behaving oddly.  

Most other databases will detect and repair the error on startup or simply refuse to start with any sort of corruption.
**Database** Postgres

**Defect** No analytic queries

**Description**

Analytic queries, introduced by Oracle, are part of the SQL 2003 standard. Unfortunately Postgres hasn't implemented them yet.