MSSQL Express, MySQL, or db4o?
In designing my first scalable, flashy, performant (yes, I'll use this word I guess) internet app, I spent quite a bit of time in the database exploration realm, which really comes down to one question on a no-budget venture like I'm beginning with: open source or free? Deciding on a database for a web app is like deciding on the materials for the building you're designing - mui importante. When I took a database class in graduate school (nope, didn't know much about them until then), we exclusively used MySQL with a C API, while developing (supposedly) on a Linux platform। We weren't even allowed to use C++ and I still think my professor believes that C is better than C++ in every way...but I digress। Knowing of the ridiculous (yes, ridiculous because I have used them extensively) debuggers available on Linux (clunky, buggy, slow, incompatible with various g++ compilation types, etc.), I decided to develop my programs on Windows using VS2003 (with a free academic