On Fri, Aug 20, 2004 at 23:40:08 +0700,
David Garamond <lists(at)zara(dot)6(dot)isreserved(dot)com> wrote:
>
> Challenge question: is there a simpler way to do query #1 (without any
> PL, and if possible without sequences too?
You could use a subselect to count how many countries had a lower
medal ranking and add 1 to get the rank. This should be a lot more standard
than using sequences. It will probably be a little slower, but for tables
of that size it shouldn't be a big deal.