tensmekl@infonode.ingr.com (Kermit Tensmeyer) (02/07/91)
In article <1991Feb6.181906.17145@cimage.com> dbc@dgsi.UUCP (David Caswell) writes: >.In article <1991Feb3.182558.14411@oracle.com> jklein@oracle.UUCP (Jonathan Klein) writes: >.>In article <10737@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> mao@eden.Berkeley.EDU (Mike Olson) writes: >.>>here's the question: i have heard that oracle does not have a query >.>>optimizer. i find this surprising. is it true? >.>> >.> > >How bad is Oracle -- Not nearly as bad as Unify. As long as we're all taking pot shots at database we have known and abubsed I'll try. A company that I used to work for started using "Informix" for a project (Miltary File internetwork control). The performance and tools were so bad, that we bit the bullet and upgraded to "Unify". Six months later, Informix came back with all these improvements but it was too late to change again. Another place tried to use Ingres, but we spent more time debugging the database that we had time. We changed to Oracle V4.X and spent the equivalent time developing applications instead. When I worked in the funny shaped office building just across the river from Washington DC on UNISYS 5000's, the only database available was Oracle V5.0 with SQL*Forms V1.0 and later upgraded to Forms V2.1. To try to do so much with so little. Terrible Hardware, a dead end product with no software support. Oracle seems to promise much, deliver just enough to tantilize. Their software tools are better integrated than other Database companies, but there is a major penalty to being the Universal solution to all problems - you don't do any thing really well. The other database companies seem to lead Oracle in smaller areas and then play catch up in the rest of the facilities. I see Sybase as being the leader in Distributed Processing and Data Control. Oracle says it will be there in the next major release but I don't see any access to that technology (ie ported) in the next two years. Informix tries real hard to implement the same functionality as Oracle. They're cheaper sure, there not breaking any new ground. Personnally, I don't see that much need to real relational databases. Most of the applications that I see in the real world use the database as complicated ISAM files. Network Databases seemed to use the resources more efficently. I suspect that the idea of Relational Data format is more sexier to managers than the other types of databases. Is there any real world advantage to RDBMS? -- Kermit Tensmeyer | Intergraph Corporation UUCP: ...uunet!ingr!tensmekl | One Madison Industrial Park INTERNET: tensmekl@ingr.com | Mail Stop LR23A2 AT&T: (205)730-8127 | Huntsville, AL 35807-4201