be@dde.uucp (Bjorn Engsig) (02/23/88)
It seems to me, that the discussion here on ORACLE is very low. It could of course be the case that no ORACLE users have any questions/ problems at all, but is that really true? :-) Please wake up, share ideas, questions, etc. etc. If anybody from ORACLE Corp. (either here in Europe or over there) are on the net and read this, please let us know. Any posting or email is most welcome. To start the debate somewhere, I'm just going to post a question. -- Bjorn Engsig, E-mail: ..!uunet!mcvax!diku!dde!be or be@dde.uucp -- Hofstadters Law: It always take longer than you expect, even if you take into account Hofstadters Law.
allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) (03/05/88)
As quoted from <315@Aragorn.dde.uucp> by be@dde.uucp (Bjorn Engsig): +--------------- | It seems to me, that the discussion here on ORACLE is very low. | It could of course be the case that no ORACLE users have any questions/ | problems at all, but is that really true? :-) +--------------- I have only one question about Oracle. Can't they come up with a better report writer than RPT/RPF? I've been writing reports by doing the queries in SQL*Plus and piping the output through sed to *Unify* RPT! -- Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc {well!hoptoad,uunet!hnsurg3,cbosgd,sun!mandrill}!ncoast!allbery
dgrimmer@ncrwic.Wichita.NCR.COM (Dave Grimmer) (03/12/88)
In article <7458@ncoast.UUCP> allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes: >I have only one question about Oracle. Can't they come up with a better >report writer than RPT/RPF? I've been writing reports by doing the queries >in SQL*Plus and piping the output through sed to *Unify* RPT! It seems as if many of the components of ORACLE are not well integrated. The product could benefit greatly with a comprehensive data dictionary. PROGRESS Forever :-) -- Dave Grimmer Information Systems & Services, NCR E&M Wichita NCR:654-8602 <D.Grimmer@Wichita.NCR.COM> (316)688-8602 <{ece-csc,hubcap,gould,rtech}!ncrcae!ncrwic!d.grimmer> <{sdcsvax,cbatt,dcdwest,nosc.ARPA,ihnp4}!ncr-sd!ncrwic!d.grimmer>
mpp@ems.Ems.MN.ORG (Michael Palmquist) (09/10/88)
I've used a few different databases to develop applications -- in (ACK!) MS-DOS with Q&A & Paradox and in Unix with UNIFY. I'm wondering has anyone used any of these and used Oracle. How does Oracle compare? What are its best features? Does anything about it suck -- ah, I mean, are there any drawbacks? Thanks for any knowledgeable responses! Michael Palmquist
piyush@cbnews.ATT.COM (Piyush C. Modi) (09/12/88)
> >I'm wondering has anyone used any of these and used Oracle. >How does Oracle compare? What are its best features? Does >anything about it suck -- ah, I mean, are there any drawbacks? > >Thanks for any knowledgeable responses! > >Michael Palmquist To Subject: Re: What about Oracle? Newsgroups: comp.databases In-Reply-To: <8799@cup.portal.com> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus Cc: Bcc: We are looking for a DBMS system to be installed on 3B2/700 computer. The system should have good graphics (color) (pi charts, histogram etc.) and other usual report-generation capabilities. Our 3B2/700 (system 5 release 3.1or 3.2) will be receiving data form lots (about 20) of UNIX pcs and storing them in DBMS. We have very demanding schedule to meet. There is an opinion that INFORMIX is slower than ORACLE when it comes to handling aggregate queries. Is it true? We would also like our DBMS env to become distributed in future. Any suggestions and comments are appreciated. Please contact me at: att!asr2!piyush or att!asr1!piyush (614) 860-3460 to avoid using up this networks bandwidth. Thanks in advance. Piyush Modi
mh@wlbr.EATON.COM (Mike Hoegeman) (09/12/88)
In article <6658@ems.Ems.MN.ORG> mpp@ems.Ems.MN.ORG (Michael Palmquist) writes: >I've used a few different databases to develop applications -- >in (ACK!) MS-DOS with Q&A & Paradox and in Unix with UNIFY. > >I'm wondering has anyone used any of these and used Oracle. >How does Oracle compare? What are its best features? Does >anything about it suck -- ah, I mean, are there any drawbacks? > >Thanks for any knowledgeable responses! > >Michael Palmquist here's some ramblings you find of interest about my experiences with oracle... I don't have much experience with other dbms's but I have used Oracle quite a bit. We don't use oracle's forms package and other things like that much around here since we have our own user interface package using Sun Microsystems NeWS window manager. As a result most of the experience I have with oracle is through using the C language interfaces to it. What little experience i do have with SQL*forms (their forms package) leads me to believe it's pretty good for doing straight database applications with. If you want to inteface it with other applications or db's though it's either... 1) a royal pain in the *ss 2) impossible Depending on what you want to do. Which in my opinion is OK as long as you give people a good programming language interface to your db so they can do their interface if they like. Though I don't have much to compare it to, Oracle's C interface is coherent and works well. The C interface manual could be a lot better but it's usable. The SQL manuals in their various flavors are good. We use Oracle here on suns and on vms vaxes. One thing you should know is that SQL is the ONLY interface into Oracle. Anything you do MUST be done through SQL one way or another. All C (or whatever language you use) interfaces parse sql statements and do the resulting underlying database operations. So If You're not happy with just plain 'ol SQL you won't be happy with Oracle. If SQL is what you after then Oracle is not a bad way to go. In short , do some research on SQL if you are not familiar with it before you go out and get oracle to see if it meets your needs. Sun OS unix version: As far as performance goes, the version of oracle for sunOS unix is pretty good Oracle also has a product called SQL*NET which allows You to have a single server machine run the oracle kernel and have all the other machines access it as if the db was sitting on the local machine. SQL*NET uses tcp/ip. This doesn't degrade performance noticeably and works well. Vax vms version: The vaxVMS version goes it works but it's considerably slower than the sun UNIX version. The SQL*NET server for vms via tcp/ip is just plain unusable so if you want to use a vms vax as a SQL*NET server via tcp/ip forget it unless they've just done some major overhaul to it.. I would suspect the vax Ultrix version of oracle works pretty much like the sunOS version. If you have a vax and plan to use oracle on it , I really encourage you to use the ultrix version and not the vms version. hope this helps. -mike
lmiller@venera.isi.edu (Larry Miller) (09/12/88)
In article <23173@wlbr.EATON.COM> mh@wlbr.eaton.com.UUCP (Mike Hoegeman) writes: >In article <6658@ems.Ems.MN.ORG> mpp@ems.Ems.MN.ORG (Michael Palmquist) writes: >>I've used a few different databases to develop applications -- >>in (ACK!) MS-DOS with Q&A & Paradox and in Unix with UNIFY. >> >>I'm wondering has anyone used any of these and used Oracle. >>How does Oracle compare? What are its best features? Does >>anything about it suck -- ah, I mean, are there any drawbacks? > >Vax vms version: > >The vaxVMS version goes it works but it's considerably slower than the >sun UNIX version. I'd be interested in more specifics: which release of Oracle, which Sun, which VAX, etc. Larry Miller lmiller@venera.isi.edu (no uucp) USC/ISI 213-822-1511 4676 Admiralty Way Marina del Rey, CA. 90292
mh@wlbr.EATON.COM (Mike Hoegeman) (09/14/88)
In article <6271@venera.isi.edu> lmiller@venera.isi.edu.UUCP (Larry Miller) writes: >>>I'm wondering has anyone used any of these and used Oracle. >>>How does Oracle compare? What are its best features? Does >>>anything about it suck -- ah, I mean, are there any drawbacks? >> >>The vaxVMS version works but it's considerably slower than the >>sun UNIX version. > I'd be interested in more specifics: which release of Oracle, > which Sun, which VAX, etc. The suns we use are sun 3/160's w/ SCSI disks The vms vaxes we use are 8350's w/ RA81 disks The version of oracle we run on the sun is v5.1.17.3 The version of oracle on the vax is 5.1.2.2 By the way , on the suns we actually run the oracle kernel and system tables on one sun and have the rest of the database tables on another which oracle gets at via nfs. Grody to be sure, but we don't really have a choice cause none of suns has anything more than a 140Mb drive on it. -mike