Re: Informix vs. Oracle

Nils van der Laan wrote: > Maybe this has been asked before in this list, but i'll give it a > shot: > > Who could i better ask about the differences between Informix and > Oracle, than the Informix-users themselves. I would like to know which > > features of Informix are superior, but also which features Informix is > > missing compared to Oracle (maybe you know of some?) > > Thank you for you answers > > > >Nils van der Laan > >email: nilsl@simac.nl > > > > I give Oracle's PL/SQL a big advantage over what Informix provides for SPL. Just compare the kludges that you have to go through with Informix to have a process notified by a trigger when new rows are inserted into the table with Oracle's DBMS_PIPE functions. Additionally Informix OnLine's inability to provide alias' for stored procedures means either hard coding user names into the procedures or duplicating the procedures for each user, neither is an attractive option. In the embedded SQL area, Oracle provides a nifty feature called "Host Arrays" which permits you do execute sets of updates, inserts, deletes or retrieve multiple rows on a select with a single call to the database server. While Informix may have the better database server (a subject open to much debate and heated flame wars), Oracle by far provides better development tools and documentation for those tools. John Kroll