Newbie preparing for road ahead....

There's one other thing I did forget to mention - is this in any way going to be part of your future career plans? With the SQL Server route you've got countless MCITP qualifications you can go for, with a pretty much endless path of examination, certification and general pain for which you will be rewarded with much silver.

With MySQL I think it's fair to say there's less of that (I'm not saying you can't get paid for MySQL, before the open source guys lynch me), but I think it's more likely that a company will require a "MySQL Developer" as a rather wooly term, but many will pay extra for qualified SQL Server guys. Bear in mind that from next June (I think it is) Microsoft are changing the way they work their partner scheme; at present you can have a guy who sits in the corner doing exams, slap some cash Microsoft's way and become a Gold Partner. They're doing away with that, and moving to a scheme whereby you have to have several different technologies covered across your company, and *each technology* must be covered by a *different* person.

Almost certainly this'll lead to a greater demand for qualified Microsoft personnel, although obviously this is just speculation.

It's not necessarily a concern for you, but it's something to consider.

Adam - I was roughly saying "Open Source FTW", but in a roundabout way.

O.

Thanks for the prompt relies, I appreciate the assistance.

I have been reading a lot of web sights on the various SQL applications, and I was leaning towards SQL Express. I seems to be where I need to go. I will follow up on this more now that it seems to have some credible support.

My only objectives here are too learn a new set of applications "correctly" the first time, and not have to go back and train this old dog a new trick later. And of course do it in a cost effective manner.

Thanks again for your suggestions.

Either database is just fine for your technical needs. You can always

install both and test them out, see which UI makes more sense to you.

My biggest suggestion is to do some thorough research on security in

ColdFusion. Especially doing ecommerce. Learn about sql Injection, cross

site scripting, etc.

A nice presentation is here

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2010-develop/securing-coldfusion-applications/

Don't confuse the name of the language with the name of popular products that utilize the languge.

SQL the language is based on the SQL 92 standard.  Pretty much all database management systems make use of this language with relatively minor variations.

MSSQL, MySQL, Oracle, etc are just the product names of popular database management systems that make use of this standard.

For a beginner, any of them would be fine.  If you start getting different levels of applications the differences and the pros and cons of the different systems will start to matter, but this is mostly in the management and maintance of the database and data storage.  Accessing the data and manipulating it with SQL the language is at least 90% the same on all of them.

If you can go for either, I'd go for SQL Server *every single time*. Every time I have the misfortune to come across MySQL I end up angry, normally because it's to fix some ridiculous issue that should never have come around, and all you find on the net are lists and lists of bugs people have found. Granted it's been around a while, but at the end of the day it's open source. Backups and restores can also be an issue if you start using INNODB tables without making changes beforehand, it's just one of those technologies which you really can't administer without a good knowledge.

People tend to get into MySQL for one of three reasons; they're either using unix, they're using PHP, or they want something free.

ColdFusion tends to be hosted on Windows servers, so that's that one out the window. If you're using CF then you're unlikely to be running PHP, and Microsoft now do SQL Express, a completely free version of SQL Server from which you can upgrade to anything up to a multi-homed redundant SQL cluster without having to change a letter of your CF code. SQL Express comes with Management Studio Express, which is the usual MS point-and-click haven - you don't need to know what you're doing to right-click a database and select "Backup Database"; it's just common sense.

I've used MySQL before and whilst it's fine for bolting onto out-the-box forums and the suchlike, it can fast become a nightmare if you start having issues.

I hope by unbiased, objective opinions have helped.

O.

PS in case you haven't noticed, I hate MySQL.