Re: What about the Oracle vs Sybase Ads?

In article <des.91_at_helix.nih.gov> des_at_helix.nih.gov (David E. Scheim) writes:
>capabilities in this arena from a vendor which up to now did not even offer
>optimization in its basic SQL queries. -- David Scheim

Hmm. Actually Oracle has contained a Syntax based optimizer for years now. What you mean is that Oracle didn't have a cost based optimizer. There have been years of debates over which is better - I feel that some combination of the two which also allows for smart programmers to override the optimizer's "Guess" is most appropriate.

I agree with you though that there are lots of details yet to be worked out. Besides table size, in distributed database there are issues of machine speed, machine cost, link cost, link speed, reliability, load, etc.

My point is, what Sybase gives you is much more like a kit than a production product. The whole idea of programmable server is a lot like saying "Here's your new system. It's really a bunch of prototypes, but you can make it do anything you want if you write enough C code. This is certainly flexible but it is proprietary, non-standard, nonautomatic,  and less efficient than the industrial strength methods the other vendors use. Case in Point: Anyone out there know of a single large application in Sybase that actually uses two Phase commit ? Maybe there are five or ten in the world out of how many thousands of installed Sybase customers. This to me is a great example of how pushing technology can create a lot of hype, but without useability no one will implement real applications.

Has anyone figured out why the analysts don't kill Sybase for renaming all their products Open- (Open Client, Open Server, Open Gateway) when in fact their product is the most proprietary, least open of all the major DBMS's ? (Sybase SQL is non-ANSI, their DBLIB is non-standard, they don't support embedded SQL well, FIPS Flaggers at all, and don't even have Cursors in the DBMS engine ?) Don't flame me that they're adding this stuff in System 10 since they renamed everything Open-* last year.

• Dan

Daniel Druker
Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA                    

| Dan Druker                                                               |
| agsm mail 	: ddruker                                                  |
| internet 	: ddruker_at_agsm.ucla.edu                                    |
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Disclaimer: None. I'm a student now and I don't care what you think. Received on Tue Feb 16 1993 - 23:22:08 CET