Re: New RDBMS implementation

Leandro Guimarães Faria Corsetti Dutra <leandro_at_dutra.fastmail.fm> wrote in message news:<pan.2004.05.04.18.02.13.681645_at_dutra.fastmail.fm>...  

> > Does that device exist?
>
> Not yet. It has been requested, and if I convince the bosses
> here we'll create one. No idea how soon yet.

Do you have info about how to write a Dataphor device?

> > I sent a version with many fixes to the author (a swedish guy who works
> > for Mimer), but I think he misunderstood it.
>
> Ah, you mean the LARL grammar, not the language as published
> by D&D...

Yes, the book's grammar only has a few little problems solved in the LARL grammar. For instance the "begin" of "begin transaction" could be confused with the "begin" of a "begin/end" statement. And there is a similar problem with "rename". But I am sure about D&D are now aware of that.

> >> Now what if one needs a data sublanguage in a host language?
> >
> > You can build a complex script and to send it to the DBMS.
>
> Yep... what I do mean is when you want to do something like
> SQL embedded in COBOL or C.

It is the same.

> > Int32 is a subtype of int16 and int8 is a subtype of int 16.
> >
> > Integer is a subtype of numeric and so on.
>
> Have you noticed Alphora scrapped the type hierarchy in
> Dataphor 2?

No, what they did?

> Sure it is, simply by virtue of being sane.
>
> But there are other considerations aside from sanity. Hackers
> (not crackers) are sure to hate the language syntax and keywords with
> its IBM-like syntax and keywords.

Syntax is not very important, I was thinking about the semantics of the language like: there are not pointers, a lot better subtyping model. Relation typed variables, relational queries, declarative integrity constraints, etc.

It would be possible to create a Java/C coders friendly version of Tutorial D and another for the Basic or Pascal coders. VB .Net and C# have almost indentical semantics, to chose one of the other is a matter of taste. We could do the same with Tutorial D and D4.

> > I am very skeptical about building business information systems without
> > variables.
>
> Dunno. Have you seen what Paul Graham did in what has became
> Yahoo! Stores?

No, what he did?

> > I meant that is very difficult to implement a good IDE or to integrate a
> > new language in Visual Studio.
>
> You are painting yourself in the MS, proprietary corner... you
> can't win at MS game.

Visual Studio is a great IDE and I don't pretend to put MS out of the business :)

SharpDevelop is not a bad option. Eclipse could be another, but I don't know it.

> > Almost everybody I know is moving to .Net.
>
> So what? It just proves almost everybody you know is in the
> MS camp.

And it would not be very intelligent to ignore that fact.

> This is the big issue for me. MS has a huge cost in my
> country... and I like it free as in freedom.

In my country the vast majority prefer to pay for Windows than to have a free Linux. The cost of a Windows license is low compared to the cost of any employee.

Very few people can take advantage on the source code. I don't have any interest in having the Windows source code. Some parts of the Windows 2000 and Windows NT source code were stolen and published in the net but they are not useful to me.

> >> I'm not a coder, but I gather Java is not significantly
> >>worse than .Net.
> >
> > I disagree.
>
> Apart from popularity?

Java is still more popular but .Net framework is superior (has more quality) in almost every aspect, and it is maturing a lot faster than Java did.

.Net Windows forms are a lot better than Java Swing, you may use different languages and it is very easy and cheap to create your own language, it has better performance, the libraries are a lot better, it is more innovative, it has a more promising future, it has better integration with leading tools like MS Office and Crystal Reports, it is more user friendly and productive, etc, etc.

Portability is not a big concern for us because Windows is everywhere in our sector and the MS guys are porting the framework to other hardware platforms. Light fast rich graphical user interfaces are the key.

> OTOH PostgreSQL has a proven architecture, and given you
> control the language, a backend can always be substituted.

I tried that with FireBird which is not a lot worse than PostgreSQL and I am very regretted. Many features were very tricky to implement and the performance problems due to the poor physical data independence arised soon. I have to throw out a lot of code, but not the language part, fortunately :)

> >> There are quite some companies making big bucks by publishing
> >>code and then supporting it. Zope, the GNU toolchain, the GNU Ada
> >>compilers, Ghostscript all work like that.
> >
> > MySQL could be a better example. I have to think about it, but I was
> > always skeptical about open source.
>
> It is about the only way of competing against MS, unless
> you're IBM...

Well the problem is that I have not a clue about how they manage to make money with open source. Where can I read about it?

On the other hand, almost all DBMS makers sell licenses including MySQL.

> Tell us whenever that'll be.

Ok.

Saudaçoes
  Alfredo Received on Wed May 05 2004 - 01:46:57 CEST