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Re: Is Oracle deliberately difficult?

From: Nuno Souto <nsouto_at_nsw.bigpond.net.au.nospam>
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 12:28:00 GMT
Message-ID: <39afa5c1.857559@news-server>

On Thu, 31 Aug 2000 18:16:33 -0500, "Jason Kratz" <jkratz_at_rctanalytics.debug.com> wrote:

>agree the 'latest whitest and brightest' should only be so once they've been
>proven so. Marketing means nothing except to the marketers (and people who
>dont know any better).

Absolutely in agreement here.

>The tables only 'crop up' for the length of the code that creates
>them...thats the point. If they didn't act that way they'd be "work
>tables". I personally loved having the ability to create tables and use
>them on the fly however I wished without having to worry about the clean-up.
>Maybe its 6 of one half-dozen of the other on this issue. I see your points
>and they're valid.

I see what you mean. One thing that always makes me cringe as a DBA however, is the ability in a database engine to create ad-hoc tables of any given size. Bad news for space management, in any engine.

They may be indeed useful, although as I said I never needed them. But they sure will upset any DBA taking care of a sufficiently large database.

>
>Is there performance data out there for Sybase vs Oracle in row level locks
>and volume?

I dunno. What I do know is that I never felt the need to limit number of row locks in ORACLE since they have been around. In Ingres it was a big problem with the stupid lock escalation and in Sybase they never existed (page locks only). Curious to see what will happen to SS7 and their "dynamic row locks"...

>> - be able to use the same language for both database management and
>> database data manipulation. Another one of Codd's 12 rules. In ORACLE
>> since day 1, only of late in Sybase and still not complete.
>>
>
>Example please.

SQL everywhere. Use it to manipulate data as well as to examine and analyze the dictionary. This is only possible in databases where the dictionary itself is stored in tables, just like any other user data (of course, under lock-and-key!). When you gotta stray off SQL and go back to a proprietary language (be it T-SQL or whatever) in order to do basic administration checks, something is very wrong with the "RDBMS" engine!

>
>Uh....PL/SQL and TransactSQL have nothing to do with any standard
>(obviously). Transact-SQL worked as well for me in the past as PL/SQL
>does now. I'd hardly classify it as 'an abortion'. PL/SQL may be based on
>Ada but that means pretty much nothing for the majority of programmers out
>there. I highly doubt that Sybase will switch from Transact-SQL at this
>point. Dont see why they should. It works fine.
>

Well, the problem is that to do anything useful in Sybase, one has to resort to T-SQL. PL/SQL is not absolutely necessary in ORACLE, just an extension that is a nice to have. But most DBA stuff and app design stuff can be done using basic SQL and basic database features.

>Only used Sybase on UNIX so I can't comment there. Oracle definitely is
>available on many platforms but are they all equal to the task as the
>Solaris version?

Yes, very much so. VMS (not as important nowadays), NT (pretty much solid, although performance doesn't match UNIX. But that is NT, not ORACLE), MVS (yes, the big iron!) and just about any flavour of UNIX you care to mention. Plus a few scattered proprietary OSes still out there.

>
>> - be able to resize a column's max allowable size without forcing a
>> re-design or a data unload/load. In ORACLE since day 1, try to change
>> an integer cluster key column in Sybase to long integer and check what
>> you gotta do...
>>
>
>Never had to do this before so I can't comment.

Well, it happens very easily when the integer is used as a growing sequence number. Just been through one of those exercises and it is murder in Sybase. You wouldn't believe what they had to do to make it work... In ORACLE it's a simple ALTER TABLE statement.

>
>Apparently the market agrees as Sybase has a miniscule share but that seems
>to have just as much to do with their management as anything else.

In a way, yes. If they had bit the bullet ages ago and re-designed the product top-to-bottom to make it a true RDBMS, they wouldn't have the problems they have now. Instead they did the usual "hit-and-run" : poo-poo the competition and milk the old Britton-Lee code for all its worth. It's got limits and they hit them...

>>
>
>According to the polls DB2 and Oracle are running neck and neck in
>marketshare. Apparently a lot of people don't think Oracle is the end-all.

Of course it isn't. And thank God for that or else this industry would be pretty boring. They can't match the features in 8i and they won't be able to do so for a while but they have a solid, well thought out product with all the necessary base features. So they are serious competition. Still nowhere near as portable as ORACLE but it will get there.

>>
>
>The market isnt agreeing. Thats why DB2 is just as popular. Oracle 8i is
>pretty impressive though.
>

Pardon? I reckon the market IS agreeing. Fact is the only two really serious RDBMS products in the market are the only ones remaining in serious contention.

MS's little thingie V7 (or whatever it is) will pass like all the other versions they have released over the years: they still haven't realised they know squat about RDBMS's, so they can't compete. IBM and ORACLE are the only serious kids in the block. Period. Good too.

Cheers
Nuno Souto
nsouto_at_nsw.bigpond.net.au.nospam
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/the_Den/index.html Received on Fri Sep 01 2000 - 07:28:00 CDT

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