Re: Best Procedural Language?

On 8/3/06, John Sidney-Woollett <johnsw(at)wardbrook(dot)com> wrote:
> I'd say that the biggest benefit of pl/pgsql for postgres is that it is
> so close to Oracle's own procedural language. This makes the job of
> porting from Oracle to postgres *nearly* trivial.

while this is true, pl/pgsql has a lot of other advantages wrt other
sp languages:
* first class, non dynamic sql: cuts code, complexity and errors down
50% and increases security (or at least makes being secure easier)
* unified error system: perl brings perl errors, java brings java errors, etc
* cursors/refcursors: you can pass anonymous refcursors between
pl/pgsql functions directly. of course, this can be emulated in
dynamic plpgsql, but it is awkward and error prone. also, different
cursor mechanisms bring huge flexiblity in tight syntax.
* named parameters
* and most of all, pl/pgsql makes programming fun. ok, this is
entirely subjective and inconsequential, but it works for me. :-)

merlin