Re: PL/pgSQL 2

On 01/09/14 23:46, David G Johnston wrote:
> Álvaro Hernández Tortosa wrote
>> On 01/09/14 21:52, Joel Jacobson wrote:
>>> On Mon, Sep 1, 2014 at 8:34 PM, Álvaro Hernández Tortosa <
>> aht@
>> > wrote:
>>>> What I can add is that, if Postgres is to devote resources to a new
>>>> language, I would plan it with a broader scope. What would attract most
>>>> users? Would it bring non postgres users to Postgres? What could be one
>>>> of
>>>> the killer features of any next version? My trivial answer to most of
>>>> these
>>>> questions is: PL/SQL. I don't know with detail how complex this is to
>>>> get in
>>>> Postgres (well, EDB probably knows), but if I had to chose a new
>>>> language,
>>>> this is it. So my questions would rather be:
>>> Interesting visionary ideas.
>>>
>>> For me personally, I have no Oracle functions to port to Postgres, so
>>> all differences
>>> between PL/SQL and PL/pgSQL would just be unnecessary extra amount of
>>> work
>>> in the process of porting existing code into a new language, be it
>>> PL/SQL or PL/pgSQL 2.
>>>
>>> That said, if PL/SQL wouldn't suffer from the problems I have with
>>> PL/pgSQL today,
>>> I wouldn't see a problem writing new code in the language, but then I
>>> would probably
>>> never manage to port all existing code to PL/SQL and I would be stuck
>>> with a mix of code
>>> in two languages instead of one. With PL/pgSQL 2 on the other hand, it
>>> would be feasible
>>> to eventually port all my existing code, as most of it would be
>>> compatible without changes
>>> and the rest would easy to make compatible.
>>>
>>> I guess it's a question of if it's more important to recruit Oracle
>>> users,
>>> or if it's more important to improve the life of existing PL/pgSQL
>>> Postgres users.
>> I agree that for you, unfortunately, plpgsql2 would be better than
>> PL/SQL. However, I believe as a whole a bigger majority of users would
>> be benefited from this.
> Is it even legal for us to create PL/SQL?
Honestly, I don't know. But I don't think so. And if it is, be it.
Let's have Oracle sue us (who?)
>
> Beyond that in all likelihood having both a version two of the pl/pgsql
> language and the pl/SQL language would be a desireable outcome for, say, a
> 10.0 release.
If 10.0 is to follow 9.5, I'd agree. Althouth I'd also agree for
any earlier, if that would be possible.
>
> The former simply because languages by their very nature are evolutionary
> and at some point the lost productivity of suppressing such evolution in the
> name of backward compatibility will be deemed undesirable. It may be
> desirable to simply call the new language pl/elephant instead pl/pgsql2 but
> the fundamental reason for evolving a language in order to incorporate newly
> acquired knowledge is unarguable. Though in this case the entire
> language/extension mechanism should be considered and not just the specific
> procedural-SQL language we are dealing with here.
>
> The goal of adding PL/SQL would be to increase the user base of the project
> and hopefully attract new blood to the development team in order to maximize
> long-term survivability and increase the pace of innovation. We would be
> unable to introduce substantial evolution to this language for that very
> reason and so a different language is likely to be needed - eventually.

That's what I think. Increasing the user base, in a moment where
for many reasons we all know many want to migrate off of Oracle... let's
bring them here before they move to something else, with also piles of
money and great marketing capabilities....

Álvaro