Re: SQL Standard

among other ideas, Nicholas Carey <ncarey_at_speakeasy.org> wrote in message news:<Xns9152C61F8F8F3ncareyspeakeasyorg_at_207.126.101.92>...
>
>
> Oracle may be (this should yank some chains!) the biggest
> offender in this regard, since they've turned SQL into a full-
> blown, ADA-derived programming language.
>
> Micro$oft, on the other hand has committed to bringing SQL Server
> to full ANSI-compliance. Which isn't to say that they'll get rid
> of their extensions. :)
>

PL/SQL is a feature outside the standard. All the vendors do that as you point out that MS does it too.

But the ANSI compliance applies to just the SQL features. ORACLE has certainly not moved forward with higher level compliance to the standard. However, their product was out doing production work before the newer levels of compliance were completed. Thus, they had issues of backward compatibility that SQL Server did not have.

And given ORACLE's position, it makes sense. If you sold a RDBMS how would you allocate your limited development resourses? Climbing the standards ladder or improving the features/performance of your product?

I give MS credit for following the standard as far as they do, but they started with a clean slate. It all boils down to "what does the customer want?" and the answer has not been compliance to the highest levels of the SQL standard.

 There has never been a programming language that permitted the simple movement (copy, recompile, run) of applications from one platform/vendor to another without some modifications. Not SQL, COBOL, FORTRAN or BASIC. Maybe ADA or APL came close. C was also a contender but never did quite win the crown. (no wait, maybe LOGO?) and the decision is still out on JAVA.

So if you are considering (speaking to the original poster) having the database as a "pull out one, plug in another" module in you system, be sure to design your system for that. The database vendors will never do that for you. Received on Fri Nov 09 2001 - 11:45:50 CST