Re: newbie queston: why would anyone use Oracle?

From: IANAL_VISTA <IANAL_Vista_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 01:26:27 GMT
Message-ID: <Xns96DABB97159AASunnySD@68.6.19.6>

"PJ6" <nobody_at_nowhere.net> wrote in news:tLZYe.15$j_3.5_at_trndny07:

> "William Robertson" <william.robertson_at_bigfoot.com> wrote in message
> news:1127500387.720471.142950_at_g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

>> The idea that PL/SQL is for "introducing loops and other procedural
>> badness directly into my queries" or that it is "simple", or that you
>> shouldn't use various arbitrary features on the grounds that "they
>> are probably not simple deviations from the relational model" is
>> absolutely ridiculous and an insult to full-time PL/SQL developers.
>> That includes me by the way. It is as simple or otherwise as you
>> choose to make it. PL/SQL has nothing whatever to do with introducing
>> loops into queries. That is what XML is for. Jeez.

>
> You shouldn't take it personally, I already admited that I know very
> little about what we're discussing. Certainly it was not my intention
> to insult anybody.
>
> "PL/SQL has nothing whatever to do with introducing loops into
> queries."
>
> Then why did someone call PL/SQL "procedural"? To me "procedural"
> means GL3. GL3 structures and concepts, when possible, need to be
> avoided in a set-based language. At least that's what I was taught
> when I learned theory. Maybe I just misinterpreted someone else's
> comment.
>
> If not, I do acknowledge that there is still a need for GL3 features
> in relational languages. SQL Server 2005 (and probably Oracle already)
> finally provided a way of expressing recursive joins. But I hear the
> performance is poor, so in the land of MS, transitive closure will
> still require an IES.
>
> Paul
>
>

Please try doing an
IF
THEN
ELSE
construct in pure SQL

With SQL you start at the top & execute statements until you drop out the bottom. Received on Fri Sep 23 2005 - 20:26:27 CDT