Re: Sequences?

Thank you, funny, however.....

I am not sure what point you are trying to make. As an obviously intelligent and successful db user/designer you must be aware that in the real world the issues involved in porting an app that works successfully with identity/autonumber to work with sequencing are far greater than the typing in of your sample solution. Designing a brand-new app from scratch Oracle sequences, and some of the other minor gripes that I have about Oracle would not give me the slightest problem.

• POMPOSITY WARNING **** ALERT ****** You seem to take any criticism of Oracle very personally. Freely using words like "whine" and "clueless" (elsewhere) reduces respect for your opinions. Readers automatically get switched into emotional mode along with you. Perhaps you don't care for the respect of those with whom you disagree but I doubt that is the case. Its the nature of the newsgroup medium. I suspect that if by some chance we had met face-to-face without preconception and chatted about some of this stuff we'd have a laugh about it and persuade each other in some areas and agree to disagree in others. Just trying to lower the temperature.....
• END POMPOSITY WARNING *************

damorgan <dan.morgan_at_ci.seattle.wa.us> wrote in message news:<3C712CF4.F03D49E6_at_ci.seattle.wa.us>...
> That you haven't needed the capabilities provided by Oracle's sequences is fine.
> Some people, many people perhaps, don't. But some of us do. And for us ...
> autonumbering would be useless. So are you saying you'd rather have something
> that limits you to only one possible usage ... or would you rather have
> something robust, flexible, and scalable?
>
> But I must state that I find the amount of whining over this to be amazing. Is
> creating and using a SEQUENCE more difficult than creating an autonumbered
> column? Lets see:
>
> SQL> CREATE SEQUENCE s;
>
> The total characters typed was 18 including spaces and the semicolon. that
> created the sequence. I'm a bit sore but I'll continue.
>
> Now I'll add the sequence number to the insert statement for the table:
>
> s.NEXTVAL,
>
> Well that took a total of 10 keystrokes including the comma at the end. Probably
> 11 if you hit the space bar before continuing with the rest of the insert
> statement.
>
> A total of 29 keystrokes.
>
> Damn I guess you are correct ... my fingers are hurting and I'm developing some
> kind of syndrome that is going to require extensive use of pain medication,
> antiinflammatory steroids, and physical therapy.
>
> Daniel Morgan
>
>
>
> Heinz Kiosk wrote:
>
> > > There is no relationship between MS Access's autonumbering and a SEQUENCE.
> The
> > > autonumering is part of the table and is only capable of sequential
> numbering.
> > > It has no flexibility, no programmability, and is strictly tied to a
> single
> > > table. All it is is the following code built in and hidden from the end
> user.
> > >
> > > SELECT MAX(numbering_field)
> > > INTO next_number
> > > FROM xyz;
> > >
> > > INSERT INTO xyz
> > > (numbering_field + 1, other_field1, other_field2)
> > > VALUES
> > > (next_number, someval1, someval2);
> > >
> > > Daniel Morgan
> >
> > Methinks Daniel doth protest too much ;). "All Autonumber/Identity is" is
> > something exteremely useful that answers 99% of needs for this kind of
> > thing. I've never wanted numbers that cut across tables and I've never
> > wanted anything other than incremental numbering in 20 years of db schema
> > design. I agree "create sequence" is more flexible than MS SQL identity or
> > MS Access autonumber or DB2 identity or Sybase....(long boring list of rival
> > technologies snipped); but sequences are also a pain in the arse when all
> > you want is a system generated identity (as supplied in easier form by every
> > other db platform I've ever seen). Also are you seriously suggesting that
> > the above is the algorithm that any db actually uses? I think not.
> > (particularly as you wrote it wrong, SQL syntax error. Also potential
> > problems with above algorithm with transactions and synchronicity. Never
> > mind)
> >
> > Regards
Received on Tue Feb 19 2002 - 07:16:24 CST