Re: Tricky SQL Problem: Top "n" of queried records

In article <6f8qki$9fu$1_at_nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <bmuller_at_kenan.com> wrote:
>In article <6f0rfo$5v3$1_at_pebble.ml.org>,
> joelga_at_pebble.ml.org (Joel Garry) wrote:
>>
>> In article <3512F42A.B4591493_at_kenan.com>,
>> Brenda Muller <bmuller_at_kenan.com> wrote:
>> >In Sybase (and Sybase alone), you can "set rowcount 3" at the beginning of
 your
>> >transaction, which will restrict the server to returning only 3 rows.
 There is
>> >nothing analogous to this in Oracle.
>>
>> In sybase, you can wait forever because one of those rows is on the same
>> page as a completely unrelated row that someone has locked up. There
>> is nothing analogous to this in Oracle.
>>
>
>I assure you, this particular post was objective fact without any personal
>opinion or judgement thrown in. Your response has an emotional edge which
>is inappropriate.

What was inappropriate was your flamebaiting the oracle group with your "nothing analogous" post. My post was neither more emotional nor less appropriate.

>
>Incidentally, it's not possible that you would wait "forever" to access a
>row in Sybase which is on page that is exclusively locked by another process.
>I'll not expound on that, because it's probable that your word selection was
>based on emotional drama rather than fact.

When the time the other row is locked is greater than acceptable online performance, it might as well be forever. What is emotional about that? Your probability analysis is based on baloney. My comment is based on having to tell customers they have to put one row per page, convince the third party who wrote the software to deal with Sybase's row/page problem or suffer the problem. Customers do tend to get emotional about that. I blame Sybase. You are welcome to blame the third party. Oracle doesn't have the problem.

>
>Brenda Muller.
>
>
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