RE: PL/java?

I agree that there could be quite a few circumstances where you would
want to utilize the class libraries. I'm doing a lot of PKI myself,
and I could see how painful it would be to waste time trying in C,
when Java _does_ really offer a lot.

-Kevin

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org]On Behalf Of Dr. Evil
Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2001 4:52 PM
To: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] PL/java?

> You make a good point about Java not being "portable" (the JVM not
> being fully portable anyways). That could certainly be enough reason
> to not benefit the PostgreSQL community as a whole. It _is_ a shame
> that Java 2 hasn't made it over to other platforms yet.

It will make it to the other platforms eventually, I hope. It's a
shame that Sun's "write once, compile once, run everywhere" promise is
just marketing to some extent.

> Although, I haven't thought about it much, but I'm not sure I see
> any advantages of using Java over PG/plsql. Other than streamlining
> _some_ development since developers in a Java shop would know Java,
> I don't see any language-specific advantages.

pl/pgsql is a great language, I agree. However, java has some
tremendous advantages. The big one is its classes. I needed to do
some DES encryption within the PG database. Well, there's no DES
function in PG, or in pl/pgsql, so I had to write it as a C function
and then link it in. Sure, that works, but the point is, if we had
pl/java, I would just call java.security.encryption.des() (or whatever
it is) and it would be there. Right now I need to do some public key
stuff. I could try to link that all in in C, but that would be a huge
pain. The java standard classes do just about everything. pl/pgsql
will never come close to that.

Also, java is object oriented and more convenient for writing larger
things.

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