[Pljava-dev] The pljava Project is dead (LONG but I hope interesting)

On 20 July 2015 at 08:42, Bear Giles <bgiles at coyotesong.com> wrote:
> It's a big jump in scope but don't some databases have a native type for
> java classes and a way to execute them? (It's not hard to imagine a UDT for
> jar files as well.) It's not always possible to load jar files from the
> operating system.

Personally that fills me with horror, but each to their own.

You should be able to do this with PL/Java already if you really want
to. Just implement a custom classloader.

Anyway, that's a totally separate topic to how to make Pl/Java easier
to maintain, more attractive to use/work on, and more lively looking.

Personally I think the underlying impedence mismatch between
PostgreSQL shared-nothing-by-default multiprocessing architecture and
Java's shared-everything-by-default multithreading model limits the
appeal and utility of PL/Java as much as anything. Especially since
the JVM doesn't like being fork()ed and is designed around a
heavyweight startup long-running process approach. That said, Pl/Java
could expose the new dynamic shared memory features in PostgreSQL to
applications, which would permit apps to pass serialized objects
around via shared memory, and that'd meet most inter-process
communication needs.

--
Craig Ringer http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services