Re: PL/pgSQL 'i = i + 1' Syntax

On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 10:18:51AM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Tom,
>
> > If you only care about Oracle to PostgreSQL (and who wouldn't?), then ?
> > it in fact seems desirable for PL/pgSQL to be a superset of PL/SQL.
>
> I agree with David here. We care about the ability to migrate PL/SQL -->
> PL/pgSQL. We do *not* care about the ability to migrate PL/pgSQL -->
> PL/SQL. So supporting extra syntax which Oracle doesn't ... as long as
> the Oracle syntax still works ... is in fact a good thing.

Except someone did make a very good point that as soon as we add some
feature that Oracle doesn't have, they can turn around and add the same
feature using a different syntax, and then we'd have a real mess.

If we're going to be serious about easing migration from Oracle we
should really be adding PL/SQL as a language, because there's already
some pretty non-trivial differences (off the top of my head, how you
handle sending debug info back is a big one, as is our lack of
packages).

IMO, if the community is going to concentrate on a migration path, I
think MySQL is a much better target:

- There's already a commercial solution for migrating from Oracle, and
there's probably more money there than in migrating from MySQL

- Enabling migration from MySQL would be a tremendous benefit to the
growth of the community, because there's a lot more people who would
try that on a whim and stick with PostgreSQL than for any of the
commercial RDBMSes

- Having some kind of compatability mode would make it much easier on
all the OSS projects that currently only support MySQL to add
PostgreSQL support. It also makes it much easier for people to use
PostgreSQL over MySQL
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461