When are Oracle going to listen to their users and start to implement
fundamental requirements which already exist in other RDBMSs. I am
sick and tired with Oracle Support saying, "it's a bug, and there are
no known fixes", "it might be in the next version, but then again it
might not", "you want me to put in an enhancement request..might take
3-5 years though", "it has been asked for before, but we have no plans
to do it", "you'll have to write a work around", "speak to your
account manager, he might be able to get it put in, if you are a
really big corporate customer"
Listen Mr Ellison and your crew, Oracle is still missing basic
functionality. So let me suggest something, instead of poncing around
with new Oracle technologies like Java, why don't you sort out the
basics first.
Oh and before you read this list and reply: "But this is easy to
implement" or "I've written something to do this anyway" let me
explain....so have I had to write / find workarounds for all these.
But at the end of the day it shouldn't need to happen, it should have
been in Oracle years ago. They're fundamental.
- A "RANDOM" function.
- A RANDOMIZE function to accompany "RANDOM" function.
- A native "DIV" function. Oracle has MOD an integer remainder
function but not an integer division function. DIV and MOD always
appear together, but not in Oracle.
- Bitwise boolean functions OR, XOR, AND, NOT (not the same as
boolean operators). Ever tried to write a decent encryption algorithm
in Oracle without these? Ever tried to mask an integer to see if a
bit is set? Just overload the existing boolean operators to allow
Bitwise boolean opeartions.
- TO_HEX function. Are they stupid or what?
- TO_BASE function which can handle bases up to 64.
- A variant of REPLACE that only replaces the first instance of
search_string found. Come on Oracle simply overload it and add another
parameter Max_Replaces (Max_Replaces > 0).
- Alter Table RENAME COLUMN .... How bloody obvious is this? How
many times do you need to be asked? OK you have constraints to
consider but they know this. We don't like using the data-dictionary
hack.
- Constraint fk_MyForeignKey References MyOtherTable (MyPKField) ON
UPDATE CASCASE. Is Oracle the only RDBMS that doesn't have a native
on update cascade?
- Constraint fk_MyForeignKey References MyOtherTable (MyPKField) ON
DELETE SET NULL. Another Oracle gotcha. It is basic referential
principles. Every single DB design case tool has this but oh no not
Oracle, it is far too obvious for them.
- The ability to find out who is the locker when using pessimistic
locking (e.g. when "select 1 from MYTable where MyPrimaryKey = MyValue
for update nowait" fails because someone else has already
pessimistically locked it.)
12 The ability to move the cursor back to correct typos in SQL plus.
Why is it still not possible? Sometimes we haven't gone into another
editor and we accidentally make a typo at the end of a 200 character
line, so Oracle makes us retype the whole lot again. SQL Plus is and
always has been an extremely poor interface.
13 Polymorphism in Objects. What other object modeling language
doesn't have Polymorphism? derrrrr
- Binary operator XOR.
- Give SQL Loader the ability to skip columns in CSV format. Not
all fields in a CSV file may be needed Oracle, so come on.
16 Allow Oracle Debugger Probe to watch of implicit loop variables.
- Allow "OR REPLACE" syntax on all create object commands.
etc. etc. etc.
I could continue, but I'm sure others will add to this.
Kind regards
Paul Scott
aspscott_at_tcp.co.uk
^^ remove 'as' anti-spam prefix to E-mail
Received on Wed Jul 28 1999 - 06:55:05 CDT
