Re: [HACKERS] PL/pgSQL - for discussion

Mike wrote:
>
> David Gould wrote:
> >
> > I haven't read the PL/SQL proposal yet so please do not take this as
> > criticism of the proposal. It is just that I have sometimes wondered (having
> > used and maintained a couple of them) if there is a real need to invent
> > another procedural language inside a dbms. Who really needs yet another
> > language that only works in certain special circumstances?
>
> But Jan has already adopted an existing language interpreter (i.e. TCL).
> Now he speaks about server side programing using native SQL.

For version 6.3 look into .../pgsql/src/pl/tcl.

>
> Actually existance of SQL server programming in SQL database seems to be
> quite expected feature. You may consider that most SQL developers
> doesn't really need other languages but SQL, so it's not inventing
> another language. It's just a wider, more flexible implementation of
> internal SQL.

Even if "most SQL developers don't need (or know) another
language" is reason enough for an SQL based PL, my main
reason is another one.

PL/Tcl at least requires that the Tcl library got built on a
system. And I have tested only that it works with Tcl7.5 and
Tcl8.0. I expect that the PL/perl implementation (I hope
Brett McCormick is still working on that) will need a perl
library too.

So there is no PL implementation up to now, that is
independent from another software package. PL/pgSQL will be!
PL/pgSQL will be the first language that can get installed
and enabled by default and then be available in all
PostgreSQL installations.

Jan

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