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Re: Benchmarks - Java vs PL/SQL

From: Andrew Mobbs <andrewm_at_chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Date: 18 Dec 2000 00:00:17 +0000 (GMT)
Message-ID: <rHm*Kt1Jo@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>

 <dellera_at_my-deja.com> wrote:
>
>Because there are a lot of programmers that know Java and only
>a few that are proficient in PL/SQL, so it's easier for companies
>to find the former rather than the latter. Skills shortage being
>so critical for the IT industry as it is, Oracle doesn't want to
>sell less licenses than possible because of the lack of technicians
>that are able to leverage the power of its server.
>
>How many books on Java there are ? _thousands_.
>How many book on PL/SQL ? _tens_ (or ten, perhaps ;-))
>
>Tell a recent graduate that s/he will work in Java ("cool!").
>Tell s/he will program in PL/SQL ("what?").
>
>So, even if I agree that PL/SQL is superior to Java for
>performance, and that object-orientation is not necessary
>for stored procedures (which rarely are more than 200 lines long),
>I understand the reason behind Oracle move towards Java...

While I acknowledge that this argument reflects what happens in the industry . I strongly feel that it should not be the case. Programming is, IMO, a skill independent of language. It is a serious error for a company to fail to recruit a good programmer simply for lack of experience in the relevant language. It takes as little as a few days to be able to use a language, and be able to work with it, and a few weeks to become proficient enough to be a productive programmer. If there are experts available within the group, and good code review practices are maintained, then minor deficiencies from a programmer new to a language can be spotted and corrected at very little cost.

Especially for less widespread languages, a company can quite easily spend as long searching for somebody who's both right for the job and has the experience in the language as it would take for a good programmer to learn a new language.

-- 
Andrew Mobbs - http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~andrewm/
Received on Sun Dec 17 2000 - 18:00:17 CST

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