Re: Senior Oracle DBA now Learning InformixbyRequestofCompany
Not a troubleshooting thread: it's a tail-end of a vendor debate (spun off a thread about an Oracle DBA learning Informix) between DB2's Serge Rielau, Oracle's DA Morgan and others. The argument is whether procedural code such as PL/SQL's FORALL/bulk operations is 'clunky' and whether a relational DBMS should need procedural logic to speed up INSERT...SELECT, versus the optimizer handling it transparently. Morgan challenged critics to post equivalent non-clunky procedural code; none was posted. No technical problem is solved and no resolution is recorded.
Auto-generated by DrWatson from the posts below — may be imperfect; read the full thread.
DA Morgan wrote: >Yeah ... statements containing INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE. So what about MERGE? what about more than one statement? > One more thing Serge ... if you have non-clunky code that will equal > its performance I'd really like to see it. Daniel, you are missing the point. If a _Relational_ DBMS needs to move to procedural logic to speed up INSERTs from a SELECT then that tells me something about the priorities. If Oracle is doing something truly amazing with FORALL then why not speed up insert? They already have append-hints and direct (?) insert... Why force upon the user a piece of logic that needs to be learned on top of what they already know? When customers note that Oracle is complex then it is because of things like these. A truly good product hides optimizations from the user. No hints, no extra syntax. The turbo charger is supposed to kick in on its' own. Just think about how often you yourself have pushed the syntax in c.d.o.server in the past year. It's yet another thing to learn. Cheers Serge -- Serge Rielau DB2 Solutions Development IBM Toronto Lab WAIUG Conference http://www.iiug.org/waiug/present/Forum2006/Forum2006.html
Serge Rielau wrote: > Daniel, you are missing the point. > If a _Relational_ DBMS needs to move to procedural logic to speed up > INSERTs from a SELECT then that tells me something about the priorities. It doesn't but that wasn't the point. The point was the statement that PL/SQL is clunky. Of course one uses procedural code as a last resort ... in all database products. But no one was whining about Oracle's implementation of SQL. I put up a challenge to those making that statement ... if they had a more aesthetically pleasing way to achieve similar performance, with procedural code, then put up the code. The silence has been deafening. Your attempt to change the subject ... from Oracle's procedural code ... to whether it should be the first-choice is noted. How about posting some procedural code for comparison? -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org
DA Morgan wrote: > Your attempt to change the subject ... from Oracle's procedural code > ... to whether it should be the first-choice is noted. How about posting > some procedural code for comparison? Last I checked I thought we all claim to have RDBMS. Post in a Fortran compiler group if you want to put IBM to the test on that.... -- Serge Rielau DB2 Solutions Development IBM Toronto Lab WAIUG Conference http://www.iiug.org/waiug/present/Forum2006/Forum2006.html
DA Morgan said: > Your attempt to change the subject ... from Oracle's procedural code > ... to whether it should be the first-choice is noted. How about posting > some procedural code for comparison? Uhhh ... perhaps we're more relationally inclined? Procedural code is like, soooo 80's. -- Bye now, Obnoxio "I don't read newspapers anymore except the local rag which I do weekly to cheer myself trying to see if anyone I hate has been stabbed." -- Horribilis XVI -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean.
Serge Rielau wrote: > DA Morgan wrote: >> Your attempt to change the subject ... from Oracle's procedural code >> ... to whether it should be the first-choice is noted. How about posting >> some procedural code for comparison? > Last I checked I thought we all claim to have RDBMS. > Post in a Fortran compiler group if you want to put IBM to the test on > that.... I love IBM. I love AIX. I have a warm spot in my heart for 370 mainframes. But where is your non-clunky equivalent procedural code? Can't find it with a telescope. Can't find it with a microscope. Point made! -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org
Obnoxio The Clown wrote: > DA Morgan said: >> Your attempt to change the subject ... from Oracle's procedural code >> ... to whether it should be the first-choice is noted. How about posting >> some procedural code for comparison? > > Uhhh ... perhaps we're more relationally inclined? Procedural code is > like, soooo 80's. Then why all the criticism of PL/SQL being clunky. I suspect envy. <g> -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org
DA Morgan said: > Serge Rielau wrote: >> DA Morgan wrote: > But where is your non-clunky equivalent procedural code? > > Can't find it with a telescope. > Can't find it with a microscope. > Point made! Daniel, the whole point of a relational database is that procedural code is redundant. Are you saying that because Oracle performs best with procedural code that it's not a relational database? -- Bye now, Obnoxio "I don't read newspapers anymore except the local rag which I do weekly to cheer myself trying to see if anyone I hate has been stabbed." -- Horribilis XVI -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean.
DA Morgan said: > Then why all the criticism of PL/SQL being clunky. Because it's not relational. -- Bye now, Obnoxio "I don't read newspapers anymore except the local rag which I do weekly to cheer myself trying to see if anyone I hate has been stabbed." -- Horribilis XVI -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean.
Obnoxio The Clown wrote: > DA Morgan said: >> Serge Rielau wrote: >>> DA Morgan wrote: >> But where is your non-clunky equivalent procedural code? >> >> Can't find it with a telescope. >> Can't find it with a microscope. >> Point made! > > Daniel, the whole point of a relational database is that procedural code > is redundant. Are you saying that because Oracle performs best with > procedural code that it's not a relational database? I didn't say Oracle performs best with its procedural code nor would I as it is not true. No one was comparing procedural code with non-procedural code. The statement I objected too was that PL/SQL was not ELEGANT. That is all I was addressing. As the subject was PL/SQL ... I posted PL/SQL. Would you have preferred i post Pascal or Algol? -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org
Obnoxio The Clown wrote: > DA Morgan said: >> Serge Rielau wrote: > > ... the whole point of a relational database is that procedural code > is redundant. > Hmm - I don't think even Serge would agree with this statement. Procedural code has it place both within and extant to the database