Re: SQL server Vs Oracle

Nuno Souto wrote in message <7hefgs$8u8$1_at_m2.c2.telstra-mm.net.au>...
>David <desertfox_at_thegrid.net> wrote in message
>news:_bi_2.780$i4.68153_at_alfalfa.thegrid.net...

>> actually said. I do not work for MS and could care less about their
>> marketing. Is your hatred of MS so deep that you have to use it as a
Straw
>> Man and not discuss issues that are actually a part of this discussion?
>
>Sorry, I don't hate them. I use their products in my PC's too. Because
>I have to. The reasons why are irrelevant here. And some of them are
>extremelly useful to me. What I hate is people that accept their
>marketing drivel as some form of gospel without looking at the past
>history of this industry. Which is NOT the same as saying that I hate
>your ideas or point of view, OK? We are simply exchanging views and
>arguments, or can't that be done anymore?

Sure that can be done, as long as the spirit and intent of your arguments is to reasonably address the issues and not employ the use of logical fallacies such as Straw Man.

>> As a side point, you are aware that marketing is more important from a
>> business standpoint than technological advantages?
>>
>
>Sure. Completely irrelevant though in a technical discussion. Any
>tecnical argumentation that uses marketing "facts" is therefore flawed in
>this context and deserves to be shot at.
>Metaphorically speaking, of course! :-)

Anyone who ignores economic issues when discussing which technology is superior is either independently wealthy or lives in a fantasy world. Marketing is important because it may allow a company to increase income which in turn allows them to prosper and make better products. The Commodore Amiga was a superior computer for its time but it has since faded from memory. In that sense, Microsoft will always be around to support its products.

>NO, faster/larger disks/CPUs are not the reason why proper application
>and database design can be relaxed: the result of that is a spiral of
>even higher demands, as current state of affairs is proof plenty.
>And the reason proper design rules were thought out in the first place!

And who is arguing database design and application? As a software developer I sure hope database design is still a priority! Do I sense another straw man here? I think I do.

>> How do you think MS is able to run their entire site using IIS? They have
a
>> massive server farm to make up for NT's scalability weakness. So in their
>> case, using more hardware WAS the solution!
>>
>
>Wrong. ADDING more hardware, the initial argument, is NOT the same as
>USING more hardware. In the context of this discussion, adding more
hardware
>means adding more power to an existing single system. More memory. More
>disk capacity and I/O paths. Faster CPU. Like MS abundantly recommends
>as the "cure all" of any NT problems. Solves NOTHING except in very limited
>cases.

>USING more hardware to spread the load accross parallel processing
>systems is nothing new and we certainly need not NT for this or to prove
it.
>Been
>done since the year dot of this age. What is so special about MS and NT
that
>makes this suddenly such a GREAT technological solution?

There is nothing inherently special or new about any of these technologies. In the past large powerful hardware/database combinations were traditionally used but technology has moved so fast and has become so inexpensive that utilizing mass inexpensive hardware is now becoming a viable alternative. Microsoft excels in this cheaper bracket of machines and it is only obvious to the casual observer that these inexpesive NT machines are going to slowly replace the need for the user unfriendly UNIX boxes.

>> Interesting how your logic tells you that your 450 MHz PII runs Word
slower
>> because its design is 'utter crap'. Once again, try substantiating your
>> arguments with some proof rather than making these sweeping
generalizations.
>> I would imagine Word97 has a hell of a lot more features than Word2.
>>
>
>From a design point of view, a word processor that has grown by two orders
>of magnitude in its storage requirements, CPU needs and memory demands and
>continues to deliver a simple fact: word processing, is IMHO a piece of
design
>crap. Regardless of whatever "nice" features it may have. Let me explain
with
>an
>analogy: suppose someone added great features to your prefered model of
car,
>such as anti-lock brakes, continuously variable transmission,
auto-diagnostics
>and such. But to do this they had to make it the size of an interstate
>transport
>truck with two trailers. Great show, lots of features. But all you
>wanted was something to take you to the supermarket and back... Of course,
>because the price of this monster is the same as last year's model, you
think
>you are getting real value for money?

And if our highways had kept up with Sillicon Valley we would have highways as wide as the Earth and we would be traveling at the speed of light for the cost of pennies, so YES, I WOULD want a car with all those features because now I get to go shop at a supermarket on Ganymede, a moon orbiting Saturn.

Your argument is flawed because you assume everything else has remained the same while the computing needs of Word has gone up dramatically. Who gives a rats ass if Word takes up 100 megs of hard drive space when 18 Gig drives are becoming standard? Or who cares if Word takes more memory when most average systems ship with 128 Megs of RAM? Being efficient is desirable but when reality says that our hardware is overbuilt by a factor of 10, Word's processing needs hardly ever come anywhere close to taxing most modern machines.

>> >Look at the history of this industry for the last 20 years! Have you
EVER
>> >seen an hardware improvment that wasn't immediately matched by more
>> >complex software? This then grinds it to a halt and makes a yet faster
>> version
>> >of the hardware needed.
>> And what is so diabolical about this? Faster hardware and more software
to
>> match it... that actually sounds like a good deal! Progress.. you gotta
love
>> it.

>Have we saved ANY money? NOPE, absolutely NOT, we went through
>the upgrades to VL Bus/PCI/AGP, the upgrades to 486/Pentium/PII/PIII, the
>upgrades to networking capacity, the upgrades to memory bus systems and
their
>string of incompatibilities, all the expense involved in
>re-training/re-toollin/re-equiping.
>Cost of all that? I'll let you work it out...
>
>The result? "Add more hardware", of course! Yeah, right!
>
>When is this industry gonna open their collective eyes and stop
re-inventing
>the wheel every six months? There is no such thing as a "silver bullet"
>solution
>to what are in essence problems identified long time ago. The more we
spend
>trying to masquerade (market) products into these magical bullets, the more
>we'll get
>involved in this spiral.

Our discussion was specifically on the scalability of an NT web solution. Adding more hardware actually does work great! We can get idealistic about this and try to bash Microsoft for not being up to snuff to what our school text books say should be the 'right' way, but this is reality. And the reality of the matter is that you have to choose one solution or another. All solutions have their drawbacks but they also have their benefits.

Your idealistic 'silver bullet' drivel really gets us no where in trying to determine which solution will work best. Just look around and see how many companies are choosing the Microsoft solution and are actually achieving great success.

>> Old crappy systems are always going to be around in one form or another.
If
>> you want to live in a world of fantasy where MS will never dominate the
>> market it chooses to compete in, then go right ahead.
>
>So far they have competed in the PC/LAN arenas. After nearly 15 years,
they
>won. Great. All the power to them. I'll be long gone before they win
anything
>else.
>And no, flogging a product for free to create a market is marketing, not a
>technical achievement.

Once again, great marketing is just as important to a company's profitability as its technically superiority. Technical superiority will come in time as the competition falls behind due to lack of marketing/image/income. You do remember the browser wars, way back when Netscape was king. MSFT marketing defeated Netscape, not its technical superiority.

>> For the rest of us, we
>> will continue to watch MSFT stock double and split year in and year out
and
>> simultanouesly watch their market share grow and grow.
>
>Keep watching. I prefer the real world where people actually have to
DELIVER
>something. Surprising how effective that is in weeding out "addon
hardware"...
>And market share price was never a measure of any technical advantage.

Wrong again. Market share and market dominance is a large aspect of technical superiority from a longevity standpoint. People choosing certain technologies are actually making an investment in that technology and if that particular technology is not advanced or supported down the road, then it was a really bad choice.

David Received on Sat May 15 1999 - 08:22:14 CDT