Re: Which Database (MySQL, Oracle, mSQL, Protgress etc.)

[Thomas Wenrich <wet_at_timeware.co.at>]
|
| I see your point in the Oracle/Solid comparison, but I think that
| Solid and Oracle are playing in different leagues.

of course they are, but this doesn't mean that since Oracle is this large high-end beast it is better suited for everything. you do not use a bulldozer for gardening, and Oracle is in many respects just that: a big, clunky, expensive to own and maintain piece of software that isn't suited at all for web applications because Oracle won't be bothered to release even the client libraries to probably the most important web-server platform.

| From Solid you get the database server and only the most required tools
| like import/export/backup. You will have to use 3rd party tools to
| create your application.

well, if you want to use the development tools for Oracle you have to pay for them and they are not cheap. besides, I've been working with database integration and web services for the past 4 years, and I haven't really missed the development tools all that much.

databases for web projects seldom become very complicated, and if they do, you can always buy a product that lets you connect via ODBC.

Solid is just what most web developers need: it's a fast, light and yet powerful database that is easy to maintain and install.

| Oracle gives you a complete environment (the database together with a
| lot of tools (Developer, Designer, Web Server, ...).

as I said, you pay for the tools, and if you don't even need them it is just silly to pay for them.

the Oracle web server is a joke. I would never use it for any serious application and I don't know any professional who would. it is *BAD*.

| - Solid's stored procedures are a joke compared to Oracle's PL/SQL.
| Solid misses important features like database triggers.

true. the stored procedures leave a lot to be desired. the way you have to do things are sometimes a bit awkward. I would much prefer it if they had imitated PL/SQL more.

also the lack of triggers is a problem if you are used to creating applications that are largely written in PL/SQL. the lack of triggers and the differences between PL/SQL and Solid stored procedures is actually the reason a customer decided not to move an application from Oracle to Solid.

then again, having seen quite a few web-applications that use database backends people seldom use PL/SQL unless they are hooking up some legacy stuff to the web.

one thing I like about the Solid stored procedures though is that they can return rows. in Oracle I have to cheat in order to return anything from my procedures, which is frustrating and silly.

|
| - Solid gives you an almost naked database (I remember the five-line
| select to get the names of all indexes from the database), whereas
| Oracle comes with a LOT of predefined views. This might not be
| important, but hey, live is easy when you 'select index_name,
| table_name from all_indexes'

then create those views yourself. (mental note: perhaps I should put my views on a web-page somewhere)

| - You don't need to run a vendor's web server to use it's database.
| When you don't like Oracle's - use another one. There are a lot of
| [almost] database-independent tools out there.

sure there are, and my company contributed the code for Oracle support to a product that lets you access Oracle databases from the Apache web server using a language called PHP. that, and because I have done a lot of development with OCI, I think I have some justification for saying that most people do not want to use Oracle.

the decision to use Oracle is usually a political one. some corporation wants to standardize on ONE kind of database, which is understandable, and quite often Oracle gets chosen because they are a familiar name.

I have experienced having to work on Oracle when I wanted to use something else simply because it didn't matter to them if Oracle would yield inferior results; what mattered was that the suits could sleep at night assured that every database in their corporation was still Oracle.

| - Once the amount of data to feed to a database reaches a certain
| point, you WILL have to 'make the database work' as part of your
| application
| development, independent of the used product.

I'm not sure what you are referring to, but if we're talking maintainance you're in for a ride with Oracle. call your wife and ask her to tell the kids daddy said hello and that he'll be around for their graduation some time.

-Bjørn

-- 
 Bjørn Borud <borud_at_guardian.no>       | "The Net interprets censorship 
 <URL:http://www.pvv.unit.no/~borud/>  | as damage and routes around it."
 UNIX person, one of "them"            |         - John Gilmore