Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ll-xn!oberon!sdcrdcf!hplabs!oracle!rbradbur
From: rbradbur@oracle.UUCP (Robert Bradbury)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: ORACLE on the cheap... questions
Summary: Oracle features explanation
Message-ID: <178@turbo.oracle.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jul 88 23:19:35 GMT
References: <5165@dasys1.UUCP> <8208@ncoast.UUCP>
Organization: ORACLE Corporation, Belmont CA, USA
Lines: 67

In article <8208@ncoast.UUCP>, allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
> 
> The only restriction in the $199/$399 version is in the license:  you can
> only use it for development, to use it as a "live" system you have to fork
> over the rest of the full price.  --But, judging from how many people pay
> for "shareware" programs, I daresay that in practice people use it as if
> they had a full license anyway.  (I do *not* advocate doing so, I'm merely
> making an observation.)
>
The $199/$399 customers are also not entitled to upgrades.  Soooo when
version 6 comes out they will have to pay if they want the latest and greatest.
> 
> Oracle has rollback, rollforward, and transaction logs.  The version I used
> (5.1) wasn't too hot on the speed front (watch, however, for Turbo Oracle)
> and SQL*Forms and SQL*Report are miserable compared to tools designed for
> Unix (they both act like what they are:  designed for VMS -- and they are
> therefore lacking in flexibility Unix types take for granted, such as
> support for multiple terminals/printers).

I *hate* statements like "wasn't too hot on the speed front".  Exactly
*what* are you doing that gives you that impression?  We beat Informix
and Ingres in a good percentage of the DeWitt benchmarks on a number of
machines.  The functionality of a full-function RDBMS (transaction logs,
security, rollback, roll-forward, read-consistancy, etc.) imposes a
certian amount of overhead.  You cannot compare the performance of
database systems which have those features with those that do not. 

SQL*Report is a very old program and is being replaced with a new report
writer which is as good as anything currently on the market.  SQL*Forms
was *NOT* designed for VMS or UNIX.  It was designed to be portable across
a variety of operating systems (VM,MVS,AOS,VMS,UNIX,DOS,AEGIS,etc.) and
to do that we have our own terminal definitions.  (You can support any
type of terminal you are willing to provide a terminal defninition for -
there is even a utility on UNIX systems to turn termcap definitions into
Oracle terminal definitions.)  Can I ask how many menuing systems based
on termcap you have running under VM, MVS and DOS?  :-)

> 
> The SQL supports quite a few more functions than (say) Informix or Unify,
> but not as many as Progress.  Nor can new functions be linked into SQL.

Well, you in fact can add functions to SQL if you know what tables to modify
and can relink the kernel.  We have customers who are running with special
functions.  The problem with this is that it requires shipping an Oracle
link kit (I assume you have megabytes of disk space to spare :-)) and
it results in a support nightmare ("oh, you added these functions and your
database is now corrupted...  hmmm, you don't think it could be the functions
you added do you?")

> (Oracle, if you're listening, this would be a big help!!!  So would (a)
> making multiple terminals w/graphics in SQL*Forms work and (b) releasing
> that new SQL*ReportWriter for more than just VMS.)

We do listen, you have to realize though that the marketplace we are trying
to serve is not just the UNIX marketplace.  SQL*FORMS will work with
multiple terminal types if you provide the terminal description.
The UNIX group is actively working on shrinking the time between VMS
announcement and general UNIX availabiliy.  The goal for the end of
the year is a 45 day lag on primary UNIX ports and no more than a 90
day lag for secondary UNIX ports.  I would expect your sales person
could do some investigation and come up with an availability date
for SQL*ReportWriter on UNIX.


-- 
Robert Bradbury
Oracle Corporation
(206) 784-9474                            hplabs!oracle!rbradbur