Re: X/Open XA Standard and Oracle

Brandon Ausman (brandon_at_unislc.slc.unisys.com) wrote:
: Mark Richter (mrichter_at_oracle.uucp) wrote:
 

: : In article <CGK5Fq.Hqr_at_undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>
 dpbradsh_at_bluebox.uwaterloo.ca (Dexter P. Bradshaw [CS]) writes:
: : >
: Too bad, maybe we'll see it some day. Currently,
: however, Oracle is too busy trying to convince customers they don't need TP
: monitors. Perhaps if they'd hop on the bandwagon rather than try to be
: everything to everyone....

This might be an interesting subject. To my humble opinion, there are only two situations where a TPM in a Unix environment might be useful:

1. If you want to migrate existing (TP monitor based) 3GL applications off a Mainframe and run it without to many dramatic changes.
2. If you want to integrate multiple (XA-compliant) databases in one transaction.

I have had a glimpse of a DataPro report which claims exactly the same. A *LOT* of the functionality of a TPM is already in modern databases like Oracle7. The big disadvantage I personally see of using a TPM is the fact that you can hardly use a proper 4GL anymore, you have to go back to the ages of writing zillions of lines of C or Cobol. It is also virtually impossible to do some form of ad-hoc querying, every database access has to be pre-programmed.

This is not to do some TPM-"bashing". I am seriously interested in the opinions and discussions of users about this subject. I am pretty sure there are good purposes for a TPM (I just haven't found enough).

Sandor Nieuwenhuijs
Oracle Netherlands

• These opinions (if any) are just mine. I do not represent Oracle ---
• Corporation in this Posting ---