Re: Oracle Jargon

In article <3cc6a75d$0$15473$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au>, Nuno says...
>
>In article <3cc683c8_1_at_news.iprimus.com.au>, you said (and I quote):
>> I am confused with the terminology of Oracle products.
>
>Hehehe! Common problem, don't worry.
>
>> Is SQL*plus to Oracle like java is to Sun Microsystems?
>
>As in being a product (program) sold by a company? Yes.
>
>> Is Oracle a company name like microsoft which produces many products like:
>>
>> SQL
>> SQL*PLUS
>> PL/SQL
>>
>
>Not exactly. What you have is a company called "ORACLE Systems
>Corporation" (at least that's what the public prospectus issue from 12th
>March 1986 says...).
>

And the reason you still have this prospectus is ...?

Man you must be a hoarder! ;)

>This company develops, produces, markets and sells a number of software
>products.
>
>Their main product is a Relational Database Management System (in short
>"RDBMS") which uses the SQL language as its interface. This RDBMS goes
>by the name of "Oracle".
>
>There is also a bucketload of other software products which interact or
>use the Oracle RDBMS. One of them is "SQL*Plus". There are many, many
>others.
>
>Clearer now?
>
>
>
>As a footnote:
>
>"SQL" is a language. Public domain and subject to standards defined by
>industry organizations. Defined many years ago as part of an IBM
>research project.
>
>Finally thrown (in disgust) into the public domain by a guy called Edward
>(Ted) Codd. He was the inventor and main promoter for many years of the
>concept of a "Relational Database".
>
>I say in disgust because like so many other old products from IBM, the
>technology existed but was not available to the public in order to
>protect the mainframe monopoly that IBM ran back then.
>
>Around 1990, SQL became a widely accepted "de facto" standard and
>essentially replaced all the other languages used to access data in a
>RDBMS. Most products supporting alternative languages ended up siding
>with SQL as the "lingua franca" of relational databases.
>
>ORACLE's credit in this comes from recognizing the importance of SQL
>early on and sticking with it even though there were other options
>available. They also were one of the very first companies to develop and
>sell a RDBMS capable of running in a variety of computer hardware.
>
>--
>Cheers
>Nuno Souto
>nsouto_at_optushome.com.au.nospam

HTH. Additions and corrections welcome.

Pete

SELECT standard_disclaimer, witty_remark FROM company_requirements; Received on Wed Apr 24 2002 - 23:32:53 CDT