Re: PL/java?

note - i don't work for any of the companies whose products
are mentioned below. i have performed evaluations of these
products and the support provided when attempting to determine
what platform my company's systems should run on. unfortunately,
i did not choose orion and i am suffering for it now...

some goober blathered thusly:
> Have you ever actually used Java on an enterprise-level
> application? Ever see the Tomcat webserver? It uses
> 100MB of memory, drives the load on our server up to 8,
> and doesn't serve nearly as fast apache. Do you really
> want that in your database?

first - don't complain about java because you or someone
in your group/department/company made a poor decision on
what tools to use. that's like complaining about mexican
food when the only experience you have is eating an out-
dated frozen burrito from the 7-11 freezer.

when looking at the performance of java you have to take
a look at two things - first you have to compare various
java implementations against each other and then you have
to compare the best java implementations against native
c/c++ code. the following link does that. the java tests
include tomcat, orion, websphere, and resin. jrun and
weblogic were originally included in the testing but
were both removed at their companies' request.

the tests also compare orion vs microsoft asp running on
win2k and iis5. all tests run on the same hardware.

what i believe these tests clearly demonstrate is that
java is not the problem, the implementation applications
based on java is. i also do not believe that tomcat is
a fair representation of java performance in that it is
intended to be a reference implementation. as such, the
code base should sacrifice performance for clarity.

http://www.orionserver.com/benchmarks/benchmark.html

while not in the benchmark i would also like to
recommend jetty as an app server. it is an opensource,
100% java web and application server. in its base form
it is "just" a web, servlet, and jsp engine. it does,
however, have contributed code providing integration
with other j2ee opensource projects such as the JBoss
EJB engine.

you can find the jetty home page at:
http://jetty.mortbay.com/

and then they blathered some more:
> Compare the speed of Oracle 8 with 8i if you don't
> believe me. The stability is also much worse. Ever
> see a JVM on any platform that didn't crash if you
> looked at it cockeyed? Ever really trust the garbage
> collection? I don't. I've found a memory leak in IBM
> developed java libraries. Gotta restart that app
> every once in a while to reclaim system resources it
> gobbled up and never gave back.

some mention was made regarding the performance of
the oracle8i application server. well, oracle has
realized that their performance was sub-optimal and
rectified the situation by licensing the orion server
for oracle9i. while money and politics most certainly
play a part in any licensing arrangement they must
also realize that making customers happy through the
performance of their applications will lead to more
money. the link to the press release is below.

http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/index.html?759347.html

all of that being said...

i don't think that the person that started this thread
did anything wrong by making the request they did. that
is what opensource is all about - contributions, even
just contributions of ideas, are welcomed. even so, there
are several options that i see for getting it implemented:
1) its an open source project so implement it yourself.
while i have never worked on modifying the code base
i am extremely confident that the current developers
will be more than willing to give you advice and
pointers.
2) if #1 is not feasible either because you don't have
the time, the inclination, or the experience then
you can write a contract that will pay one of the
postgres developers to implement it for you.
3) if that isn't feasible you can try to get a volunteer
to do so.
4) if that isn't feasible then you either have to live
with what you have, go elsewhere, or be quiet.

to the person that blathered thusly in response to the
request for java:
> Merits of the language notwithstanding, I'd rather
> not have a buggy, still under development
> (depreciating everything under the sun with every
> new iteration) JVM parasite in my DB.

informed and intelligent debate is good. given that i
believe such to be true, i would request that you
refrain from blathering such vitriol and uninformed
nonsense. not only is it for the good of the people
on the list who don't want to hear it but it will
also do you good by not telling everyone out there
that you are a very silly person that doesn't deal
with logic and/or facts.

to everyone else on the list - if we all contribute
a penny we could probably buy enough burritos from
7-11 to make sure that his hands and mouth are busy
for a good long while.

rjsjr