Independence
Posted by David Aldridge on 2011-04-13
From slashdot I see that there is once again a new language in town.
Now then, there are a great many Java developers who have preached the benefits of implementing data logic (what they call business logic) in the application so-as to create RDBMS-independent code, including James Gosling who apparantly leads the pack in “not getting” SQL.
Would it not be ironic to see them now pushing all of those “database independent” applications to a new language?
In other news, PL/SQL is coming up to something like 20 years old. Code you wrote then could still be running now.
Thomas Kyte said
Actually…
PL/SQL will be 23 years old in July 2011, it was first releases with version 6.0 of Oracle in July, 1988 ;)
ops$tkyte%ORA11GR2> select months_between( sysdate, to_date( 'jul-1988', 'mon-yyyy' ) )/12 from dual;
MONTHS_BETWEEN(SYSDATE,TO_DATE('JUL-1988','MON-YYYY'))/12
---------------------------------------------------------
22.7831452
David Aldridge said
That makes us only 15 years older than PL/SQL.
Right?
Yes.
Thomas Kyte said
In base 13, absolutely.
Vijayaragavan said
Cool! I am just 2 years elder to plsql :P
Jeff Hunter said
I thought you were sticking at 29 Dave?
David Aldridge said
I find it best to adopt a flexible strategy. You’ve got to keep it believable.
Joshua Davis said
The benefits probably don’t matter very much if you already have a large investment in ORACLE-based technology. For the system’s I’ve worked on, Java Enterprise/JPA had many realized benefits ranging from inexpensive scale-out to having access to a larger pool of candidates for hiring new developers.
Oh, and it made it really easy for us to port our code from ORACLE to Postgres. ;)
David Aldridge said
Hah, nice one.
joel garry said
I still sometimes use shell code I figured out 20 years ago. I don’t think any of the db code I wrote then is still around, though I didn’t use PL/SQL then. Some of the db-independent ERP code I work on may date from then, though I didn’t start working in the current language until ’94. I did work in it’s predecessor in the early ’80s, but I think that’s all gone. Then I think of V’Ger and wonder.
George Joseph said
@Joshua Davis..
I am interested to know about the places where you have encountered pain while migrating from Oracle to Postgres. In our company one of the decisions being used is to evaluate the Postgres and figure out the places where it can cause problems in migration..