Re: Python vs. PL/SQL for Oracle work

From: HansF <News.Hans_at_telus.net>
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 15:27:27 GMT
Message-Id: <pan.2006.03.02.15.27.27.585477@telus.net>

On Thu, 02 Mar 2006 06:57:44 -0800, dananrg wrote:

>
> You mean like the open source uDig client being developed by
> http://www.refractions.net?
> Can you recommend any others?

I was thinking about the Jump Project (http://jump-project.org/)

> Quite elegant. However, I believe the same can be done with
> geoprocessing scripting using Python without ever generating a map.
> Python can call a buffer then access the attributes without anything
> visual occuring. It's not as elegant as using one SQL statement, and
> there may be an additional step or two, but I'd say the same thing
> could be accomplished. May I post your statement to an ESRI
> geoprocessing support forum?
>

Sure.

>>So I see ArcSDE a vendor lock-in thing <LOL>

>
> There is no escaping vendor lock-in unless Oracle is free (which is
> evidently true to some extent with Oracle Express edition.). :-)
> ESRI is more-or-less the de facto standard for GIS these days. Their
> market share dwarfs all others. Doesn't make it "right", and that could
> of course change in the future.
>
> It's interesting that you bring up open source, because I have been
> investigating an open source spatial database extension to PostgreSQL
> called PostGIS, also being developed by http://www.refractions.net. I
> wonder if it can do what you mentioned in your emergency contacts
> example. For what it's worth, I attended a presentation from a
> refractions.net fellow, and he gave higher marks to Oracle Spatial vs.
> ArcSDE, for Oracle Spatial being more of a "real" spatial database.

Oracle Spatial does not pretend to compete with ESRI in the ability to manage the spatial information. It does provide storage that is compatible with ESRI and many other tools and it provides alternate ways of using the data.

It does a wonderful job of storing it, although I have seen and heard about some limitations. A number of these limitations are discussed in the Oracle Spatial Forum in the Discussion Forums at http://otn.oracle.com

It has reasonably good support for LRS and, in 10g, reasonable support for Topology and Network extensions, along with autorouting.

And the storage, using Oracle Locator, is free with any version of the database. Locator is a subset and it's limitations are described in the appendix of the Oracle Spatial Users Guide and Reference at http://docs.oracle.com

>>I admit that my knowledge of ESRI is no longer 'current' and freely
>>accept and invite updates.

>
> Let me know if I have your permission to quote you on the ESRI support
> forums and I can report back here with any good replies.
>

Permission granted. Besides, this is a public forum & I'd have a hard time denying any statement I made here in any case. <g>

All that said, I am not an official spokesperson for Oracle or for the product. I'm just a consultant and a trainer in the use of Oracle Spatial.

-- 
Hans Forbrich                           
Canada-wide Oracle training and consulting
mailto: Fuzzy.GreyBeard_at_gmail.com   
*** Top posting [replies] guarantees I won't respond. ***

Received on Thu Mar 02 2006 - 09:27:27 CST