Re: Myth of the database independent applications (Was: Are you using PL/SQL)

DA Morgan schrieb:
> I see no reason why vendors should agree on a procedural language. If
> that were a requirement IBM and Microsoft could hold Oracle hostage to
> their lesser capabilities. No FORALL, no user defined operators, no user
> defined type bodies, etc. That is not in the interest of the customers
> who benefit from the competitive environment where you guys get to play
> catch-up and Oracle is forced to aggressively enhance their products to
> maintain their lead.
>
> Viva la difference.

Great. VHS versus betamax, HD DVD versus blue ray and so on. That's exactly the reason why logic moves out of the database. People need applications but aren't willing to have a bunch of different, loosely (if at all) connected databases, depending on what the application vendor happens to like.
And instead of of agreeing on a standard, the database vendors continue to force application developers to waste time supporting wildly different languages. End result -> Java stored procedures. Great. No whatever features? Somehow compiler vendors managed to get C++ supported, right? It's not perfect but its way easier to port from one C++ compiler to another than from one database procedural language to another. Ditto for sql, but for pl/sql, standardization is naturally wrong, just as it is naturally right for just about everything else.

Right now, XML is the coming thing, with a standardized query language. Sure it's committee designed and you can lift your nose at it but there's a database vendor independent query language, XQuery and everyone goes and uses it on every database that supports it. After that, who needs data warehousing when search engines just need a bit of additional processing capabilities to make the next inroad into traditional database territory?

Because proprietary database programming languages just don't do?

Sorry, but "I see no reason why vendors should agree on a procedural language." is really low.

Volker

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