Re: Oracle news article

On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Mike Mascari wrote:

> Interesting. I'm not sure if he gets it. Oracle does have a ton of
> features that PostgreSQL *currently* lacks:
>
> Table spaces
> Logical Schemas
> System Privileges
> Advanced Object Privileges (such as Column privileges)
> Profiles
> Auditing
> Parallel Query
> Distributed Query,

And don't forget:

Table and index partitioning
Archive and redo logs
Automatic fail-over
Database PIT recovery
Tablespace Rollback/Rollforward
Rollback segments
Connection pooling!
Much more advanced procedural language
Stored procedure packages
Cursors
Transactions in procedures
Triggers are defined as pl/sql code blocks, not just function calls
In/out parameters with no need for aliases
Much more descriptive system catalog (1000+ views)
etc.

I've used all of these features back when I was an Oracle DBA, and I can
truly say I miss every single one. If you really care about your data, no
other database except maybe DB2 puts so much effort into data integrity.
I don't get why more databases don't do this. Especially the connection
pooling. Just look at any webserver to see why this is a must!

> For any given project, are the above features worth the typical Oracle
> licensing costs?

*YES* As soon as our next round of funding goes through, I'm suggesting
an Oracle server for our important data. The top five features I listed
are there for a reason. Out of everything, they give me the best peace of
mind.

> For some, yes they absolutely are. But for many, many others, they
> aren't. And as time goes on, the PostgreSQL feature list has grown at an
> accelerating pace.

That's what I'm hoping. Postgres development has accelerated very quickly
compared to the 6.5 tree. Maybe it'll have these abilities someday, maybe
it won't. But until then, it just isn't enough.

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| Shaun M. Thomas INN Database Programmer |
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