Re: Opinions on Informix

TechMan wrote: > > I am also in Asia. I make money from Informix,Oracle and SQL/server. So I > don't want anyone go into trouble. I invest a lot on each Certified training > :-} > > Clarify some points: (I use Oracle 804, Informix 7.3TC3 and SQL/server > 6.5SP3) 1. Oralce has more more options on tuning than others (near 50 > config. in init.ora and optimization hints for programmer). Take Informix has more tuneables and the same hints (in Informix IDS 7.3+). optimizer as > example, Oracle use cost (default)/rule base and optimier hints for > developer. If you don't know them well. You may feel troublesome. Informix uses Cost Based Optimizer and hints and goals and join strategy and table statistics levels from primitive through sampling at any level to histograms of every column of every row. And it is not troublesome because to get excellent results you need do nothing more than update statistics for 90-95% of the queries you execute. About > Informix, you only need to fill in the form in ONMONITOR. In this point, > Informix is Japan car. Oracle is big complicate car. To develope a embedded > database solution, Informix is good choice. Actually it is quite the opposite. With Oracle there are very few real tunables. With Informix you can get away with just using OnMonitor to create a usable engine or you can edit the ONCONFIG file and mess with dozens of tunables. So many that my article on tuning for Informix TechNotes took up about 30 pages and there are three books on the market to help DBAs tune Informix engines. It is not hard it is just that there is so much flexibility in the tunables that there are many trade-offs. > 2. For the developer, Oracle is easier since they have enough SQL function. > If you have worked with Informix. You may have headache with Date datatype > operation. It needs special program skill to perform simple operation like add. What could be easier than: NextMonth = Current + INTERVAL (1) MONTH(1) TO MONTH ?????? Seems the needed skill is a brain. OH D**N I haven't flamed anyone since last May and here it's only April! Art S. Kagel