What so special about PostgreSQL and other RDBMS?

[Quirk]

Apparently you went to that school too ... and graduated with honors.

Yup. That's actualy an understatement. Those who insist on playing
dozens with me should take warning, I admit, I do relish the game, in
fact, I even know it's history and cultral signifigance, from the
slave communites to modern hip hop, with a healthy study of the art of
controversy and the logical fallicies to boot.

However, I am just as happy to engage in respectful discusion, as
anyone can see, but when someone starts a discusion by calling me
'son' you must admit that he had it comming. And I was rather mild I
think.

Also note that I responded to all his actual arguments clearly and
reasonably.

Cheers.

 

[Quirk]

Well, I have the guts to sign my articles with my real name.

My name is Dmytri Kleiner, you could have easily found that out with a
simple search on any known search engine. I am possibly one of the
easiest people in the world to find.

The product that my company manufactures is for a narrow segment on the
market: stock brokers and other actors on the financial markets, so most
readers would not have reason to contact us anyway.

Good thing that you only mislead a few customers into overpaying for
crap. Your company is just a bankruptcy waiting for a competent
competitor to make it happen.

Anyway, I only offered testimony from real life.

Yeah, you and Kaspar Hauser.

As I said, a compeitor
of ours tried precisely what you teach.
And that company never managed
to complete their system.

What bunk, saying the competitor tried 'precicely what I teach' and
thus failed is an obvious attempt to fallaciously discredit my
argument with out actually addressing it. You're a ham fisted shill.

It's is as obvious that this competitor is unlikely to have 'tried
precisely what I teach' as it is that you have not shown us that this,
and not another reason, was why they failed.

 

[Erland Sommarskog]

Good thing that you only mislead a few customers into overpaying for
crap. Your company is just a bankruptcy waiting for a competent
competitor to make it happen.

Our customers seems to be quite satisfied with our system.

And - in difference to you - they actually know the system in question,
so I think they are somewhat better apt to tell whether it is crap or
not.

What bunk, saying the competitor tried 'precicely what I teach' and
thus failed is an obvious attempt to fallaciously discredit my
argument with out actually addressing it. You're a ham fisted shill.

I think that I made it quite clear in my first post that your suggested
strategy indeed may be very valid sometimes. But what I've been pointing
out is that this far from always the case.

Doing the sort of abstraction you suggested is *very* expensive, and
for small companies like ours or our competitor, this a huge enterprise
to take on for systems with over 500 tables and over 3500 stored procedures.
(That data is for our system; Obviously I don't have the data for our
competitor's system, but I do know the business they were targeting.)

 

[Quirk]

Dmytri Kleiner ([email protected]) writes:

Our customers seems to be quite satisfied with our system.

And - in difference to you - they actually know the system in question,
so I think they are somewhat better apt to tell whether it is crap or
not.

The Application that you wrote I have no reason to doubt is of
sufficient quality to keep your customers satisfied.

Unfortunately you have created unneeded dependencies for them, the
worst of which is not MS SQL, since it is fairly easy to get at data
in MS SQL and archive it or export it in a usefull way, the worst is
that you have tied your customers to a terrible Operating System with
a terrible licence, even Oracle users are not so screwed since at the
very least they have a choice when it comes to OS.

I think that I made it quite clear in my first post that your suggested
strategy indeed may be very valid sometimes. But what I've been pointing
out is that this far from always the case.

I would say you made it quite clear that your basic message was that
it would be folly to do what I was suggesting, and that was your whole
purpose in posting, as I said, I can tell this by the obvious
rhetorical devices you used, claiming this unnamed third party did
'precicely what I teach' a wretchedly unlikely and unqualified
generalisation, followed by saying that this, implying that this
_alone_, lead to the failure of their project. This is obvious FUD.
The lack of any other content, or even specifics in your post is the
final damning evidence. As I said, you are a shill, and a ham fisted
one at that.

Doing the sort of abstraction you suggested is *very* expensive,

It is not, as I've said, it can be as simple as writing a wrapper
function around your data access.

Not as expensive as having the system itself obsoleted by an obsoleted
dependency or the inabilty to get support for a dependency due to a
licencing dispute.

But for you, this is probably useless advice, since no doubt not only
have you chosen a SQL server with a bad licence, and an OS with a bad
licence, but no doubt you have also choses a development platform with
a bad licence, let me guess: Visual Basic?

As I said, enjoy your solvency while it lasts.

and
for small companies like ours or our competitor, this a huge enterprise
to take on for systems with over 500 tables and over 3500 stored procedures.
(That data is for our system; Obviously I don't have the data for our
competitor's system, but I do know the business they were targeting.)

All the more reason to protect your investment and that of your
customer by not getting trapped into becoming dependant on a third
party for the continued operation of their own system.

But it's pretty clear that encouraging such pitiable dependencies is
exactly what you are here to do.

 

[Steve]

PostgreSQL is highly overrated and not suitable for any environment
where little things like crash recovery and security are a priority.

What database does Google use?

Steve

 

[Volker Hetzer]

And what was your reply?

I asked first.

Realy, care to quote the part of the Contract that Gaurantees you any
rights? http://oracle.com/support/index.html?policies.html

By "tested the contarct" what you mean is you agreed to pay them
completely on their terms and where satisified with the results they
chose to give you.

So, in what way is it different from let's say, buying a cucumber?

Have you tested alternatives?

The other example was buyig gcc support from cygnus.
One bug, never got resolved in one year, consequently
we cancelled support.

Are so so stupid that you actually expect a serious answer that was
obviously a
hostile attempt to insult by way of a rhetorical question?

Ok, so for you explicitly: That was not a rhetorical question. Your response
indicated youy didn't read my posting, or at least not the relevant part, so I
wanted to check whether it was worth posting any more.

Yes, which is why you should choose one that give you a perpetual
right to the source code, otherwise you are locked into a dependancy
that may prove fatal to your application.

I start to repeat myself here. The right to the source code does not mean
anything useful, see the part you quoted below.

Unsubstantiated bunk, if you have the source code, it is not magic to
fix it, or extend it, just normal progamming.

Right. So, if I do CAD programming, why should I learn database programming
only to support a dead database? It's much easier to migrate to another one.

Besides, have you considered that quite a few open source projects get abandoned
because they have become unmaintainable? Anyone remembers hurd? Groff?
What was the last gmake improvement? And if the authors throw up their hands,
what can I do? Ask my boss to form a department for the beating of dead horses?

Simple calling something
an illusion does not explain why you condsider it impossible to
actually change a program. Perhaps you should consider a different
line of work.

Oh, it's pretty easy to change a program. Working through millions
of lines of code and repairing it with less time or money than it would
cost to migrate to another database is the trick. Convincing the customer to
install *my* database version is another, particularly if three or four
developers do this.

A better question: What kind of an idiot are you that, in the face of
good sense, the best you can do is attemp insulting, evasive
rehetoric?

It's not a better question. You keep bringing up that stupid
source code argument totally ignoring the fact that it simply doesn't
work, at least not for the money a normal support contract costs.
And if support doesn't work, I still won't support it on my own.

As I said, my comments where ment *FOR DEVELOPERS* that is those who
are developing *NEW* appliciations, and my advice is simple enough,
despite your contortions: If your application is important to you, do
not engineer a dependency on code you do not have access to.'

Do you develop for platforms other than linux?

More unsubstantiated bunk, first of all, in many cases you can hire
the original developers,

Yeah, exactly. A man year here costs about USD200000,-. A support
contract with oracle costs me about a tenth of that.
And even if I buy some incident based support contract, there is still
no difference from an incident based support contract with oracle.
As long as that guy exists and I can sue him into doing his job I don't
need the source code (he needs) and otherwise I have no one to
replace him.
But thanks for acknowleding that reliable support costs money.

regardless of your right to the source code,
secondly, by hiring the "Copyright Holders" you *ARE NOT NECESSARLIY
HIRING THE DEVELEORS*, who may not even be with the company anymore,
in fact you are often hiring some peon who they scooped of the
consulting market 5 minutes before sending him to your office as an
certified solutions prodiver or whatever idiotic buzzword whey have
for their unskilled labour.

Try it. Besides, remember, the company has an interest in providing
support because they live off it.

And finaly, it is a falalcy to say that someone will do a worse job
simply because they are not the original developer.

So, if I pick some average application programmer off the street,
how long do you think it takes before he can start smoothing
out bugs in the postgres optimizer?

But it stops short of guaranting that your apllication will actualy
work,

Of course they don't offer that. But they offer to put effort
in it. And they are dependent from me for my money.

or that your existing version of the software will be supported.

They provide upgrades and desupport dates. Ok, they do
what I pay for.

In anycase, I am not arguing agianst using Oracle, as I said, if
Oracle suits your needs and you think it's worth the money, use it,
however, my advice is that if you do develop an application, write
your code in such a way that you do not depend on Oracle, but can
easily switch it over the the greatest extent possible.

Why "the greatest extent"? That costs me more time and money
and customers that it's worth. Just look at informix to see how
it goes when a db disappears from the market:
They had a big market share, market share dwindled, they got weak
and sold themselves to ibm because that's better than going bancrupt.
Now IBM handles the migration to db2 and supports me as application
developer in porting my app to db2. This is much better than handing
me the source code and telling me that from now on I have to develop
all the new features and fix bugs on my own or simply buy a new db
and do the migration on my own.

I have no idea why you are insisting on jumping up and down like this
is crazy talk, the only plausible theory is that you get some kind of
thrill out of embarassing yourself.

Where do I jump up and down?

This is just stupid, elegnt coding is hardly as unatainable an ideal
as you seem to be conviced, in fact in this specific case it's a
simply matter of using a standard wrapper function throughtout your
aplication to access your data rather than using proprietary bindings
throughout your application, if your application is sufficently
complicated, perhaps a data abstaction object might be usefull for
this function, perhaps not, if you use any non standard features of
your database server, then write some additional functions as wrappers
for these. It is anything but rocket science.

So you have defined "elegant" as "abstraction" and expect the rest
of the programmers to agree that that's it?
Thanks for solving that problem for the rest of the world.

What about the human and financial load? As in the load on the DBA,
inhouse developers, consulting budgets and application support staff?

The load on the DBA depends on the problems the application makes.
That typical increases if the application ignores load reducing features for the
sake of being generic. This creates an excessive amoung of simple
queries and lots of network traffic. Right now we have huge problems
getting an application to work properly that claims to support mysql and
oracle. They could have done half the app in PL/SQL and saved 90%
of the network and client load.
Also, if the database is not the standard one (because you have
fixed/improved it) I have, at the worst, maintain two independent installations,
at best, two independent update cycles.
Developers are constrained by (among other things) the load they are allowed
to put on the db. That's a business decision.
As for consulting, we pay a flatrate for db support, so we unload as much
of our problems on the oracle people. Works fine.
Ditto for support staff. Our users have oracle, so the more we make the db do
the less problems we have in our own code.

Are you having a nightmare in which we are dicussing the various
merits of MySQL versus Oracle? Please follow your own advice and read
this thread again so that you might figure out what is it we are
actually taking about.

We are talking about open source versus commercial databases. I picked
those two as examples because I have worked with both of them.

The more you talk, the clearer it is how right I was.


More straw men and red herrings. If you are a Developer, which is who
my comments are addressed to, it is your responsiblilty to your users
and clients to know how your application works and to be able to
support it without allowing some third party to hold them hostage.

No one holds anyone hostage. I let people do what they are good at.
I'm ok with application programming in the CAD world. Oracle (or
IBM, or microsoft) are good at programming databases. So, I
profit from their expertise by being able to provide a better application
than if I had to do db development (or fixing) as well.
So far no one has complained.

If the above is true, that someone can only access any of the devices
on your Database server via the local console, then your network *IS*
secure

one can of course log on to the database. Via the listener and all the stuff.
In theory from an unsecure network. So, db security is not network security,
because all the stuff of protecting data from different users needs the
cooperation of the database.

This is what I'm trying to say, that network security comes first,

You can have a secure database within an insecure network.

because Database security can only depend on it, not being able to
actualy protect devices, which is the burden on the OS and networking
environment.

The os protects devices, not the network. Or, daring to think the unthinkable,
do you mean that you consider it ok to have database data on nfs mounts?

Once again, It must be assumed that your consternations to contend
this point are some weird form of self-flagilation.



What does reading text files have to do with Chip design?

Because some tool will have to parse the text and create the chip out of it.
This tool typically costs in the range of USD100000-200000 for a synopsys
ASIC compiler. You need the same tool because any other tool creates
totally different designs, ignores the original constraints and rules and
uses a different library which may even force a complete redisign.
Compared to that, a database migration is truly a breeze.

I can read
text files I created on my Apple ][, and no, I do not have the orginal
hardware (well maybe my mom does somewhere in her basement).

Not all textfiles are notices for you to read.

Try to avoid making an ass of yourself with further pretentions.



Which ones? That abstracting access to suspect dependencies is a good
idea? That elegance is abstraction.
That database security is secondary to network security? Yes.
That
one should keep archives in a format that is likely to be readable
forever?

Yes.
Those are the tree main reasons. The fourth one is your persistent
belief that the right to the source code is of value.

All these things come from experience,

So, what migrations have you done so far?
Right now I'm in the process of doing two, one boing our board design
toolchain, with plenty of data translation and the other a business flow app.
So far we've spent at least four man years on the CAD flow and it's far
from over. As for the other, try to imagine having a small busines flow
tool and then introducing SAP companywide.
And we get migration support from the new vendor.
Believe me, a database migration is *EASY* compared to that.
Even if I hardwire OCI calls into my c-code and then switch to
ODBC or something.

your attempt to question my
experience, only show that you are unable to formalute an actual
argument, so you try and discredit the arguer instead of the argument.

I did. You just didn't understand it.

Oh please, my argument has been presented well enough, attacking me
just shows you can not defend your own, that is if you actually had
one.

You might have noticed that you got responses from different people
whereas you are the only one who thinks my arguments are rubbish.
Now, statistics is not fact, but it's evidence and should get you thinking.

If my argument was not backed up by anything it would easy enough to
refute it without attempting to insult me,

I don't insult you I'm trying to get through to you.
Reasonable arguments didn't work.

These must be voices in your head that you are hearing. Since my
argument have been quite clear and even sumerized several times.

Yes. The right to source code balances nonexisting support and
buying support for a open source software (instead of trying to
fix things oneself) is somehow better than doing the same with
commercial software. Did I leave out anything important?

Your arguments amount to the metaphysical belief that only the
copyright holders of your favourite proporiety software know how to
program,

No, that they are the only ones that should be allowed because they
are the only ones that can take responsibility.

that the very concept of good programming is an illussion,

No, it's just that so far no one has found out what it is, because
despite all the attempts software still is not substantially more stable
than software written 30 years ago.

and therfore the only way forward is to make yourself both tehnicaly
and legaly dependent on them as much as possible.

You forget that they depend on me. Namely, on my money.

No, that's not right, that's not even wrong.

So, what is it?

(with applogies to Wolfgang Pauli)

Application developers should avoid locking themselves in to external
dependencies, either by not using products to which they have no right
to the source code, or abstracting access when they do use such
products. Simple.

There it is again, this source code right thingie. And you complain about me
getting rude.
Again: The source code is no guarantee of fixed bugs, much less improvements.
It's not even what I want. I also can go and tinker with the airbag of my car
if I think it's broken, I don't do that either but go to a repair shop.
And if you are worrying about expiring licences, for many products
(purify and our oracle installation spring to mind) you get permanent licences and pay yearly
for support, so I can still use the app when the vendor goes bust.
And before you come again about the source code I can fix and improve,
or pay someone to do it, I won't because that would be wasting company
money and that would be because a migration is cheaper than tinkering with
the old software and it wouldn't lose us customers either because customers
don't like dead software.
When we figured out that our new CAD tool doesn't support oracle 9.2
we gave them a ding behind the ear and, see, the next release, out
in two months supports it and til then we got a workaround.

And having right to the source code does not mean that the program is
'open source,' as you can purchace such a right for propretary code,
as is common for libraries.

And still, if something goes wrong, I file a service request.
And if the company does ceases to offer the product I change company.

Of course, when the program _is_ open source, you are guaranteed that
right.



"Assitance" only means that they will provide someone whose time they
can bill you for,

As I said, we pay a flatrate.

not that anything will be accomplished.

Then they lose money if they don't accomplish anything.

Many large companies, and profesional develpoers provide source
licences and/or support open source products, including the largest
computer company in the world, IBM.

Yep, so I can buy support, mess up the code I've access to and let
IBM sort it out, is this what I get by using a IBM supported mysql?
If not, what's the difference to buying db2 support?
(One thing more: No, if IBM abandons mysql I'm still not taking
on the support task, ok?)

Greetings!
Volker

 

[Geoff Berrow]

I noticed that Message-ID:

What database does Google use?

Google's data is stored in data coops.
http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html

 

[Volker Hetzer]

What cold comfort that is. I would prefer the right to make my
aplication work without their good graces.

Before you consider suing them I suggest you reiview your contact with
an actual lawyer. So you can understand exactly how painted into a
corner you really are.

Look, we've got about 50 people here dealing with
exactly those questions, telling us what contracts to enter and what not.
When we buy support, we *know* what we are in for and when and
what to sue them for and how to deal with them before we sue them.

How can you cancel the contract when your entire application is
dependanton there product? Can you afford to throw away your
application too?

See my other posting. Compared to changing the application (replacing
it with another), changing the underlying database is easy.

What on earth are you trying to say here? Why is a postgresql
developer any more or less interested in your contarct than one who
pedals proprietary software?

A developer who does not earn mony by it is less interested in providing
work than one who does. Therefore, support contracts make sense.
I was talking about the case where I go to the developer and ask him
to do something for free.

Why? What magic powers are possesed by the firm that holds the
copyright? Expcet the power to prevent anyone else from touching or
looking at their code?

They developed it.

You're not seriously trying to draw me into to a discusion on
communist history are you? If so, please go ahead, it may be
intersting. I've been reading the Fabian writing of George Bernard
Shaw recently myself.

Right. Mao wanted every village to be self-reliant and do everything on
their own. I think the best published example was that more or less
every village had its own steel factory, resulting in a very low efficiency
and crap steel. If you read about north corea you will sooner or later
stumble on something similar, called "Juche". A fierce desire to be
independent, an inability to recognize you can't be a specialist of
everything and, consequently, a desaster.

By the way, I am _not_ arguing that one must do everything
themeselves, only that one should not get locked into being dependant
on a single provide.

As I'v said, I'm baffled that this is so controversial that you all
expect me to defend my good name merely for saying it.



It was quite a poorly demonstrated point, as they nearly did and could
well have lost their own customer under the arrangement.

Not "nearly", the legal opinion was correct and therefore the only ones
to worry were the sued ones.

Because there is no such requirement,

See my other posting.

As the old joke goes: "if this fire alarm fails, and your house burns
down, we will refund the entire purchase price (not including the
battaries)."

OTOH, "if you install this fire alarm, you will pay less insurance on
the house".
No, they wouldn't, because first they would have to understand the code.

Were do you get this idea? You can contract many companies, large and
small, to support your open source product, the difference being that
you can hire another when when they fail, because you have a right to
the source code, where as you have no recource when the provider has
all the rights.

Like, suse and redhat, each doing their own distributions?
Could you provide a link where IBM actually provides support
for mysql? The only thing I have found is them bragging that MySQL AB
(fully) supports the AIX port, not that IBM supports MySQL.

Yes, developing applications costs money, it is this investment I am
advising people to protect by not getting locked into third party
dependencies.

I do get locked into a third party dependency, even if I can change
the third party. I agree, on the plus side, I can change support without
changing code, so who actually owns the code and merges the
fixes from the other guy, provided they don't want to keep them themselves
because they want to keep the customers?

It means everthing.

Why? I can't change it.

It means the difference being being the master of
your applications and contracts or being a slave to a third party
vendor.

He's my slave because I pay him.

Maybe not 'out of the hat' but with less expense and retraining that
having to reprogram the entire application which was programmed with
proprietary bindings everwhere instead of properly abstracted code.

Abstraction can make the job easier, you are right here, but then
changing a database is not that hard too, as long as both are relational ones.

Well, for one, you would never have to change away from the open
source products because of a dispute with the developer.

Yes, I would. Because I'm not going to maintain my own database
distribution.

But in
anycase, my argument is not, and never was, oracle and db2 versus
postgresql or mysql. But rather for abstraction when you do not have
source code, or sometimes then too.

If I have abstraction it's even less necessary to mess around with
the db because it's easier to change the db.

Yes, passing the buck is unfortunalty the normal business practice,
however good firms neither do it or put up with it.

And that is why special libraries, databases or servers exist?

I certainly would
not expect my clients or users to be satisfied when I told them, I'm
sorry the application I provided for you doesn't work, but you will
have to discuss this with Larry Ellison. Nor would I be satisfied
giving such an excuse.

It's different for databases.
A) the customer quite often already has a database and expertise
maintaining it. He has an interest not to have another.
B) the customer may trust Larry ellison, or IBM more than me.
C) the customer may want a database that can do more than I could
implement or maintain, like incremental backups, logical/physical
standby databases or security.
Another case where it's different would, for instance be the OS.
How much linux maintenance do you think you can provide,
compared to redhat or suse? Is this really your corebusiness
or area of expertise?

Greetings!
Volker

 

[Volker Hetzer]

What database does Google use?

They offer jobs maintaining a "Linux cluster consisting of more than 10,000 servers".
I doubt that any single database scales that far.

Lots of Greetings!
Volker

 

[Aredridel]

What database does Google use?

Random access memory.

Completely custom, too.

Ari

 

[Quirk]

Look, we've got about 50 people here dealing with
exactly those questions, telling us what contracts to enter and what not.
When we buy support, we *know* what we are in for and when and
what to sue them for and how to deal with them before we sue them.

Your argument, as usual, is that I should just believe you, not
because you have explained yourself, but just because you *know*.

Wether you have 50 people or 100 people 'around there', the fact
remains that it is very unlikely that your investment can be saved by
a lawsuit, for every 50 you have, Oracle has more. And if you do have
more legal might than Oracle, you are the exception, not the rule.

For most organisations, sueng Oracle, or anyother major corporation is
simply not an option.

My orignal comments still hold true, the right to sue is cold comfort,
the right to pick up your pieces and try somewhere else, keeping your
application in tact as much as possible, is better.

See my other posting. Compared to changing the application (replacing
it with another), changing the underlying database is easy.

Even easier if you have abstracted your data access with a simple
function, and then used that function throught your application. I
have no idea why you find this so hard to believe.

And for what purposes are you bringing up changing the application?
How is this comparison relevent? I am trying to explain how to protect
your investment in your application; to change it as little as
possible.

You make so little sence I wonder what is motivating you to carry on.

Abstraction of your database access is a good idea. Why are you so
hell bent to dispute this.

A developer who does not earn mony by it is less interested in providing
work than one who does.

Why would anyone provide work for you without earning money? Geez, I
feel like I should be earning a paycheque just for talking to you.

As I've said, their are many profesional developers who provide
support for open source products, or provide source licences for their
own.

Therefore, support contracts make sense.

Of course they do.

They make even more sence if you are not locked in to a single source.

I was talking about the case where I go to the developer and ask him
to do something for free.

Why would anybody do work fo you for free? Are you a charity of some
sort?

They developed it.

Not necessarily, they merely own the copyright. And even so, that
still does not mean that somebody else can't modify it, and do so
well, sometimes even better than the original developers.

Right. Mao wanted every village to be self-reliant and do everything on
their own. I think the best published example was that more or less
every village had its own steel factory, resulting in a very low efficiency
and crap steel. If you read about north corea you will sooner or later
stumble on something similar, called "Juche". A fierce desire to be
independent, an inability to recognize you can't be a specialist of
everything and, consequently, a desaster.

And the relevance of this is....?

Not "nearly", the legal opinion was correct and therefore the only ones
to worry were the sued ones.

If it did come to a dispute, they could not have supported there own
application, they where exclusively dependendant on an outside firm.

Because he had no right to go elsewhere if the vendor failed to
deliver.

OTOH, "if you install this fire alarm, you will pay less insurance on
the house".

Relevence? What insurance is provided in the case here?
Fire insurance you can buy, I have never heard of application
obsoletion insurance.

The original point being, you can not recoup your own investment, just
the purchace price.

No, they wouldn't, because first they would have to understand the code.

If they where a credible provider of support and development for this
particular product, they would certainly understand the code.

Like, suse and redhat, each doing their own distributions?

Huh? No, like a competent development comany providing devlopment
services, exactly like Oracle does, but without trapping you into a
sole source situation.

Could you provide a link where IBM actually provides support
for mysql? The only thing I have found is them bragging that MySQL AB
(fully) supports the AIX port, not that IBM supports MySQL.

Your question is yet another fallacy, since you are responding to a
general statement, that many large companies, including IBM, support
open source applications or provide source licences for there own
applications, but if you really want to hire IBM to support your
MySQL implemtation, you can, I would recomend you try MySQL AB first
though.

IBM Application development and systems integration
http://www-1.ibm.com/services/us/index.wss/it/bcs/a1000402

I do get locked into a third party dependency, even if I can change
the third party.

If you can change it, you are not 'locked in.'

I agree, on the plus side, I can change support without
changing code, so who actually owns the code and merges the
fixes from the other guy, provided they don't want to keep them themselves
because they want to keep the customers?

All these question depend on the case, and have nothing to do with the
topic, if you have a right to the source you are safer that if you do
not, if you have abstracted your access you are safer still. What is
it you can not understand?

This conversation is becoming surreal.

Why? I can't change it.

You have the *right* to use it and have it changed for ever and ever,
not only by the permission of some outside company.

He's my slave because I pay him.

No, he can simply ignore you if he decides the relationship is no
longer profitable for him. You can do nothing.

Abstraction can make the job easier, you are right here, but then
changing a database is not that hard too, as long as both are relational
ones.

That's all I'm saying, Abstraction is a good idea. I was giving some
simple, good advice. What are you saying?

Yes, I would. Because I'm not going to maintain my own database
distribution.

Nobody asked you to. You have the right to use the product and never
talk to the developer if you like. You don't need to change it to
enjoy the rights that source code gives, that is the right to use the
product for ever, and even have it changed *if you need to*

My advice is to abstract when you have no source code, and perhaps
even then, I have repeated this many times and am not sure what you
are even disputing.

If I have abstraction it's even less necessary to mess around with
the db because it's easier to change the db.

Yes, that's why I am *recomending* abstraction. Are you just typing
compulsively at this point?

It's different for databases.
A) the customer quite often already has a database and expertise
maintaining it. He has an interest not to have another.

Abstaction means your application can run for different clients with
different databases then. double plus good.

However if your application is tied to one database, then the very
client you are describing is the very client that you will not get if
they use a different database from yours.

B) the customer may trust Larry ellison, or IBM more than me.

But if they only sent there money to Lary because they purchaced your,
unabstracted application, they would be pissed off when it did not
work, and you blamed it on Larry.

C) the customer may want a database that can do more than I could
implement or maintain, like incremental backups, logical/physical
standby databases or security.

Exactly, so how are you going to accomplish this with your
unabstracted application? Do you even remember what side of this
debate you are on?

Another case where it's different would, for instance be the OS.
How much linux maintenance do you think you can provide,
compared to redhat or suse? Is this really your corebusiness
or area of expertise?

Why do I have to? Since I can hire one of a million support providers
for any OS, however for OSes without source, they can't do much when
the problem is with the OS itself. Same with the database.

Again, my argument summerized for the millionth time: If you have no
source Abstract access for sure, and it's also a good idea to abstract
access even if you do. I'm baffled how you've turned this into such a
long conversation.

 

[Joel Garry]

Realy, care to quote the part of the Contract that Gaurantees you any
rights?

Instead, what you will find is that the contracts insists that the
Software is not gauranteed to be usefull for any particilar purpose,
and that they deny all responsibilitty for it to the extent possible
by law.

By "tested the contarct" what you mean is you agreed to pay them
completely on their terms and where satisified with the results they
chose to give you.

Have you tested alternatives?

....



Yes, which is why you should choose one that give you a perpetual
right to the source code, otherwise you are locked into a dependancy
that may prove fatal to your application.


Unsubstantiated bunk, if you have the source code, it is not magic to
fix it, or extend it, just normal progamming. Simple calling something
an illusion does not explain why you condsider it impossible to
actually change a program. Perhaps you should consider a different
line of work.

As someone who has profited greatly from this, I must point out that
he is correct. I've profited both from the fact that during and after
the lawsuit there is a great, _and artificially created_, shortage of
technical talent, and the fact that companies will indeed shoot
themselves in the foot by automating existing processes rather than
reengineering them, if having the source code allows them to do so.
And when it gets obsolete and no young 'uns want to deal with it,
that's when the big bucks begin.


....

As I said, my comments where ment *FOR DEVELOPERS* that is those who
are developing *NEW* appliciations, and my advice is simple enough,
despite your contortions: If your application is important to you, do
not engineer a dependency on code you do not have access to.

New or old, they get old or they die horribly. Until there is some
desire in the industry for stability over time, this is a red herring.

More unsubstantiated bunk, first of all, in many cases you can hire
the original developers, regardless of your right to the source code,
secondly, by hiring the "Copyright Holders" you *ARE NOT NECESSARLIY
HIRING THE DEVELEORS*, who may not even be with the company anymore,
in fact you are often hiring some peon who they scooped of the
consulting market 5 minutes before sending him to your office as an
certified solutions prodiver or whatever idiotic buzzword whey have
for their unskilled labour.

Make buckets o' cash following them, too.

And finaly, it is a falalcy to say that someone will do a worse job
simply because they are not the original developer.

Not necessarily. I've seen plenty of "design drift," especially over
time when the newbies may not have the context of the original
developers, and the managers feel the need to compete with completely
different things from competitors. There is also the classic case of
developers going from place to place because they are only interested
in new stuff, so follow-on developers miss a lot of the organizational
wisdom.


....

In anycase, I am not arguing agianst using Oracle, as I said, if
Oracle suits your needs and you think it's worth the money, use it,
however, my advice is that if you do develop an application, write
your code in such a way that you do not depend on Oracle, but can
easily switch it over the the greatest extent possible.

Well, this is double-edged. As someone who has spent a great deal of
the last couple of decades dealing with heterogenousity, I can state
with some confidence that the lowest-common-denominator approach will
make it very easy for the competition to eat your lunch after you've
created their market. I think SAP has seen this and that is why they
are so hot on controlling mysql, and I think Oracle has seen this and
that is why they are so hot on controlling peoplesoft (they scheduled
the court date for September IIRC?), and I think MS has seen this, and
I think everyone else has seen that MS has seen this, and all the low
to midrange enterprise app competition are already going under. Niche
markets excepted, but perhaps even more sensitive to LCD.
....

This is just stupid, elegnt coding is hardly as unatainable an ideal
as you seem to be conviced, in fact in this specific case it's a
simply matter of using a standard wrapper function throughtout your
aplication to access your data rather than using proprietary bindings
throughout your application, if your application is sufficently
complicated, perhaps a data abstaction object might be usefull for
this function, perhaps not, if you use any non standard features of
your database server, then write some additional functions as wrappers
for these. It is anything but rocket science.

If you use non-standard features, your wrapper has to emulate it for
those db's that don't have it. This may well be rocket science you
are reinventing. I've seen it be a problem over and over.


....

No, that's not right, that's not even wrong.

(with applogies to Wolfgang Pauli)

Application developers should avoid locking themselves in to external
dependencies, either by not using products to which they have no right
to the source code, or abstracting access when they do use such
products. Simple.

And having right to the source code does not mean that the program is
'open source,' as you can purchace such a right for propretary code,
as is common for libraries.

Of course, when the program _is_ open source, you are guaranteed that
right.

OK, give me the source to the Redhat 5 tape driver.

....

ROTFL!


"Assitance" only means that they will provide someone whose time they
can bill you for, not that anything will be accomplished. And you
discredit yourself by attemping the fallacy that the only way to have
access to an applications source code is to hire some one who is doing
exams. Many large companies, and profesional develpoers provide source
licences and/or support open source products, including the largest
computer company in the world, IBM.

It's so funny, because I've heard it. And at one time, I almost
actually said it. I did once say something like "I'm not coming in
while my wife is having a baby merely because your 'lead dba' can't
follow instructions to load a test database."

jg

 

[Quirk]

I asked first.

Is this grade school?

http://oracle.com/support/index.html?policies.html

I asked you to QUOTE the part of the Contract that Guarantees you any
rights, not post a link to a description of support options and what
they cost.

And even so, if you bother to read that page you would have noticed
that it is mostly about protecting Oracle's rights from you, not
granting you any.

For example:

"Oracle may provide additional releases or versions of its programs
in the form of an Update as part of our technical support services. It
may become necessary as a part of Oracle's product lifecycle to
desupport the programs and, therefore, Oracle reserves the right to
desupport its programs."

What do think "Desupport its progams" means?

So, in what way is it different from let's say, buying a cucumber?

If my application required a cucumber, I wouldn't sign a deal with a
cucumber vendor that insisted I could only buy cucumbers from them,
for ever, even if their cucumbers no longer work for me, while they
could stop providing cucumbers any time they feel like it and still
forbid me to use my own, proprietary cucumber dependant, application.
I would, at least, make my application work with any cucumber.

This converation has gotten ridiculous, can it be that you really
don't know the difference between a cucumber and an application
dependency?

The other example was buyig gcc support from cygnus.
One bug, never got resolved in one year, consequently
we cancelled support.

Yet in this case, you could have purchaced gcc support from another
company, however, without source, you would not have this option.

Ok, so for you explicitly: That was not a rhetorical question. Your response
indicated youy didn't read my posting, or at least not the relevant part, so > I wanted to check whether it was worth posting any more.

What nonsence, please demonstrate this by comparison, I have clearly
responded to all your arguments, regardless of how little sense they
made.

You attempt empty rhetoric exactly because you have no real argument.

Worth posting what? Your great advice that developers should *NOT*
abstract their code?

I start to repeat myself here.

Too bad you have no actual argument to repeat, you are merely
repeating your empty rhetoric and unsubstantiated bunk.

The right to the source code does not mean
anything useful, see the part you quoted below.

Yes it does, it's too bad you don't understand it.

If I have the source code, I know I can relly on a product for ever,
and never talk to the original developer again if I so chose. Withouth
source, the developer holds all the cards.

Let's take a simple case, say you hired a consultant to write you a
simple
application, say a specialized contact manager.

When the project was over, would you let the consultant leave your
office, only turning over a compiled binary of the application? Or
would you insist that he provide the source?

Right. So, if I do CAD programming, why should I learn database programming
only to support a dead database? It's much easier to migrate to another one.

Why are you struggling so hard with such simple logic?

- If a Dead Database means your application is also dead, if
migration is impossible; having source code can save the day.

- If migration is possible, migrating is easier with abstraction.

- If you have source *AND* you have abstracted, whoa nelly, you are
in *really* good shape.

- If your data is archived in a self contained, self describing,
human readable format, why, you are all but invincable.

Thus my advice.

Besides, have you considered that quite a few open source projects get abandoned
because they have become unmaintainable?

And closed-source applications have never been abondoned???

Another simple question: If your application is abandoned, are you in
better shape with, or without source code?

Anyone remembers hurd? Groff?

Yeah, what about them?

What was the last gmake improvement? And if the authors throw up their hands,
what can I do? Ask my boss to form a department for the beating of dead
horses?

If you are dependent on them, at least you always have the source code
and can thus continue to use the product, even have it modified if you
need to.

If, however, you are dependent on a closed-source dead horse, well,
you are horse-shit out of luck.

Oh, it's pretty easy to change a program. Working through millions
of lines of code and repairing it with less time or money than it would
cost to migrate to another database is the trick.

Reminder: I am an the one advocating Abstraction, which would make it
easier to migrate to another database. What the hell are you talking
about?

And If, for some reason, you *must* repair the database, say the bug
is simple and is easier to fix than to migrate a large working
implemtation, at least with the source, you can, without the source
you can not.

Convincing the customer to
install *my* database version is another, particularly if three or four
developers do this.

Leaving the customer stranded because your application is hosed by an
obsoleted dependency is even a harder sell.

It's not a better question. You keep bringing up that stupid
source code argument totally ignoring the fact that it simply doesn't
work, at least not for the money a normal support contract costs.

You keep basing your entire argument on nonsencical out-of-hand
dismissals, like 'it simply doesn't work.'

It does work, let me let you into a little secret: programmers modify
source code, that's how programs are made and fixed. Without source
code you can not fix a program.

And if support doesn't work, I still won't support it on my own.

You can do what you want, my advice is just that, advice, many people
are in different situtations from you, and have a different point of
view.

Do you develop for platforms other than linux?

Yes, I have and do develop for many platforms, but *I* am not the
topic of this thread, despite your desperation. Once again, you only
attack the arguer because you have no argument.

The assertion you quote remains true, and your response, as usual, is
not a response at all.

Yeah, exactly. A man year here costs about USD200000,-. A support
contract with oracle costs me about a tenth of that.

In many cases you can aquire a support contract from corporations that
have the original developers working for them.

And even if I buy some incident based support contract, there is still
no difference from an incident based support contract with oracle.

Yes there is, since you value the original developers so highly, we'll
try this example.

The best original developer of Oracle, the one with the greatest
knowledge of the system and code, quits Oracle and goes to work for
Databases-R-Us, since you have no source, you must continue to deal
with Oracle, the copyright holder, and can not hire Databases-R-Us,
who employ the developer.

The best original developer of MySQL, the one with the greatest
knowledge of the system and code, quits MySQL AB and goes to work for
Databases-R-Us, since you do have source, you no longer need to deal
with MySQL AB, the copyright holder, and can instead, choose
Databases-R-Us, who employ the developer.

Just one simple example of how having the source gives you more
freedom, and how the developer and the copyright holder are not the
exact same thing, to say nothing of the support peon they actually let
you talk to.

As long as that guy exists and I can sue him into doing his job I don't
need the source code (he needs) and otherwise I have no one to
replace him.

Suing him is a red herring. You applicaion is not powered by law
suits, but rather by compiled source code.

But thanks for acknowleding that reliable support costs money.

If stating the obvious is somehow of help to you, you're welcome.

Try it.

Try what? The paragraph you are quoting explains the difference
between original developer and copyright holder, what are you
suggesting I try?

Besides, remember, the company has an interest in providing
support because they live off it.

They also have an interest in dumping relationships that are no longer
profitable, and may not be interested in your obscure problem or
implemention, but rather more interested in selling you (or someone
else) something new.

Other organisations may be quite interested in helping you, but are
unable to because you have no source code for them to fix.

So, if I pick some average application programmer off the street,

how long do you think it takes before he can start smoothing
out bugs in the postgres optimizer?

I would not recomed you 'pick some average application programmer off
the street' if you want to sort a bug in the postgres optimizer.

Many developers could do whatever you want, for instance: PostgreSQL,
Inc (not to be confused with PostgreSQL Org), Cybertec Geschwinde &
Schoenig, NuSphere, or many others which know the system well.

However when Oracle lets you talk to a programmer, that is just who
they let you talk to, some average programmer they picked off the
street, the good programmers in their organisations to not work in the
support department, but rather on new features for new versions and
products to sell.

Of course they don't offer that. But they offer to put effort
in it.

Only as long as it is profitable for them and no more, then you get
'Desupported'

And they are dependent from me for my money.

Just you?

They provide upgrades and desupport dates. Ok, they do
what I pay for.

Only as long as you pay, and only on their terms, if you have source,
you need not change a working system just because it is not supported
by Oracle anymore.

Why "the greatest extent"? That costs me more time and money
and customers that it's worth.

Because it will save you time and money in the long run in many cases,
but it is, like everything else a case by case call, I was not trying
to make design decisions for you or anybody else, just giving some
advice, good advice, I have no idea what you are trying to do other
than be a crank.

Just look at informix to see how
it goes when a db disappears from the market:
They had a big market share, market share dwindled, they got weak
and sold themselves to ibm because that's better than going bancrupt.
Now IBM handles the migration to db2 and supports me as application
developer in porting my app to db2. This is much better than handing
me the source code and telling me that from now on I have to develop
all the new features and fix bugs on my own or simply buy a new db
and do the migration on my own.

Or instead of IBM they could have been bought by CA, and fucked up
royaly. Or just been allowed to disapear. Again, you are depending on
good luck and good graces, if you have source, you know for sure, but
as I've said many times, it's even better to have an abstracted
application.

And by the way, don't think that IBM is above squeezing these newly
aquired hostages for every penny they are worth, and tosing aside the
ones who helping would not be profitable. You dont become a 100
billion dollar company by being stupid.

Where do I jump up and down?

When you stoop to making ridiculous, incoherent, awkward streches of
logic to keep this conversation going on and on in the face of clearly
explained, good advice.

So you have defined "elegant" as "abstraction" and expect the rest
of the programmers to agree that that's it?
Thanks for solving that problem for the rest of the world.

Se here is a good example of your jumping up and down waving around a
fallacy a s if it was a point.

I did no such thing, I only explain what an elegent solution might be
//in this specific case// just as it says.

I never claimed to solve the general problem of elegent coding for the
rest world, this is just you wildly contorting yet again.

The load on the DBA depends on the problems the application makes.
That typical increases if the application ignores load reducing features for > the sake of being generic

And so does constantly changing everything to support differnet
databases when he finds your unabstarcted application does not use the
database that all his other applications do.

This creates an excessive amoung of simple
queries and lots of network traffic. Right now we have huge problems
getting an application to work properly that claims to support mysql and
oracle.

There are bad application out there, including ones that are
Abstracted, and ones that are not.

They could have done half the app in PL/SQL and saved 90%
of the network and client load.

And locked themselves out of the portion of the market which does not
use PL/SQL, but rather something else, or simply does not want to
bear the cost that using PL/SQL adds to the product not only on
implementation, but also in anual licencing and support costs.

Also, if the database is not the standard one (because you have
fixed/improved it) I have, at the worst, maintain two independent
installations,

No, you only have to maintain the one you actuall have in production.

As for consulting, we pay a flatrate for db support, so we unload as much
of our problems on the oracle people. Works fine.

Just because it works fine sometimes, in some cases, does not mean
that it works fine in all cases, my advice was generic, I am not
anti-Oracle.

In most cases it does not make sence to build your application to
depend on Oracle, or any thing else, exclusively. However there are
certainly worse products to be dependant on, MS SQL for example.

Ditto for support staff. Our users have oracle, so the more we make the db do
the less problems we have in our own code.

Your specific case is not neccesarily the general or even common case.

We are talking about open source versus commercial databases.

Again, if by 'We' you mean some imaginary person the rest of can't see
or hear, please ignore my intrusion, however if you mean You and I, we
are not.

We are talking about two different things, the advantages of source,
and the advangates of abstarction of access, I have made no comments
in this thread regarding commercial versus open source databases
except to agree that the commercial ones _do_ have more features, that
alone however does not always
make them the best choice.

I picked
those two as examples because I have worked with both of them.

Great, sadly however, not relevent.
 

No one holds anyone hostage. I let people do what they are good at.
I'm ok with application programming in the CAD world. Oracle (or
IBM, or microsoft) are good at programming databases. So, I
profit from their expertise by being able to provide a better application
than if I had to do db development (or fixing) as well.

However, a closed source contract is designed to hold you hostage, and
to keep competitors away.

So far no one has complained.

No one you know is not no one.

The os protects devices, not the network. Or, daring to think the
unthinkable,

The OS is a part of Network security, what manages user priviledges?
The Switch? What controls device permissions? Your ethernet cables?

Your network security is a product of the collection of OSes that make
up the nodes of your network. And the network is exactly as secure as
the weakest node.

do you mean that you consider it ok to have database data on nfs mounts?

See, you have just provided an example of how bad network security can
undermine good database security, there are plenty of others as well.

My point, once again, is that you can only have Database security,
*IF* you have a secure network, which means that the nodes on it are
secure.

Because some tool will have to parse the text and create the chip out of it.

Yes, that tool being the Application, the very thing following my
advice will help you protect. Also, not all data is about creating
chips, in many cases the data is the purpose of the appliction, and
can outlive it, sometimes it must, by law, be accessible for a really
really long time, like in the case of public data, as I said. In this
case in particular, keeping your data in a self contained, self
describing, human readable file format is good sence. That is why
things like XML and dublin core get invented.

It's unfortunate that you can not see the value of something simply
because you it is not needed for your specific application, and waste
my time and yours trying to convice me that because you do not need
it, I shouldn't recomend it to anyone, and by doing so I prove that I
am inexperienced, however many years of experience I may or may not
have.

This tool typically costs in the range of USD100000-200000 for a synopsys
ASIC compiler. You need the same tool because any other tool creates
totally different designs, ignores the original constraints and rules and
uses a different library which may even force a complete redisign.
Compared to that, a database migration is truly a breeze.

Then your data does not have a long life span, so why are you
presenting it as an argument, when my advice was specificly qualified
to "ensure the perminancy and portabilty of your important data?"

If your data does not need to be either perment nor portable, why are
you discussing this, do you really imagine that because you data does
not need to be permenent or portable, that therefore no data needs to
be?

I can read
text files I created on my Apple ][, and no, I do not have the orginal
hardware (well maybe my mom does somewhere in her basement).

Not all textfiles are notices for you to read.

Yet some are, and for this data my advice holds true, I have never
implied that all data must be kept accessable forever, rather advising
on what to consider when it does.

That elegance is abstraction.

The quote says "That abstracting access to suspect dependencies is a
good idea" not "elegance is abstraction"

Here you are jumping up and down again.

Yes.

It is, if you ask a security expert you will find they agree with me.

Yes.

Instead, archives should be kept in a format that can not be readable
forever? What do you think archives are for? I don't mean simple
backups.

Those are the tree main reasons. The fourth one is your persistent
belief that the right to the source code is of value.

The right to source code is very much of value in many cases, even if
it's not of value to you.

You still have demonstrated nothing about my experience, which you
still know nothing about. And your insisting on having pretentions of
being more experienced than me only help you make an ass of yourself.

So, what migrations have you done so far?

As I've said, I'll rather leave my arguments speak for themselves
rather than be drawn into a pissing contest about who has done more
migrations. Since having done more migrations would not make me
automaticaly correct.

As I've already tried to explain to you, an argument that attacks the
arguer instead of the argument is a fallacy.

When I attack you, it is purely for the fun of it, I refute your
arguments by addressing them directly.

Right now I'm in the process of doing two, one boing our board design
toolchain, with plenty of data translation and the other a business flow app.
So far we've spent at least four man years on the CAD flow and it's far
from over. As for the other, try to imagine having a small busines flow
tool and then introducing SAP companywide.
And we get migration support from the new vendor.
Believe me, a database migration is *EASY* compared to that.
Even if I hardwire OCI calls into my c-code and then switch to
ODBC or something.

You mean the same SAP that developed the Open Source SAP DB and is now
working with MySQL DB in making it MaxDB? Did you not tell them that
source is of no value? Think of all the effort you could have saved
them! Forunatly there customers, who value their data, told them
different.

In anycase, I'm not intersted in what you are working on. It's
irrelevent and it sounds banal. Nor does it in anyway strengthen your
arguments.

I did. You just didn't understand it.

Yeah, sure. I don't understand your arguments. They are
incomprehensible nonsence.

You might have noticed that you got responses from different people

And I responded in kind, if one of them made an argument you feel I
didn't address well enough, feel free to quote it, although I am happy
you feel a sence of support from MS SQL shills.

whereas you are the only one who thinks my arguments are rubbish.

How do you know what everybody thinks? you think what is posted in
this thread represent what everyone thinks?

Now, statistics is not fact, but it's evidence and should get you thinking.

Better evidence is how easily all your arguments are refuted.

I don't insult you I'm trying to get through to you.

Thanks, from now on I will never abstract my database access, ignore
network security, refuse to accept source code for any dependency of
my applications, insist on being locked in to single source for all my
support contracts and always, always keep my archives in an
incoprehensible filesystem blob that I can only access by way of a
third party, closed-source deamon.

Now that you have educated me on the fact that law suits and not
source code is what I should depend on, I will give up my long career
as a developer and begin training to be a lawyer.

You've really set me straight.

I bow before your awesome experience.

Reasonable arguments didn't work.

Always ready to go beyond the call of duty for a good cause, huh?

Yes. The right to source code balances nonexisting support and
buying support for a open source software (instead of trying to
fix things oneself) is somehow better than doing the same with
commercial software. Did I leave out anything important?

Yes, my entire argument, but dont let that stop you from blathering.

No, that they are the only ones that should be allowed because they
are the only ones that can take responsibility.

See, "the only ones that can," -- they posses a special metaphysical
quality that no one else posses. Interesting faith you have.

No, it's just that so far no one has found out what it is, because
despite all the attempts software still is not substantially more stable
than software written 30 years ago.

So we should not try to write good programms then? Quick, someone tell
Don Knuth.

You forget that they depend on me. Namely, on my money.

God help them then.

Fortunatly there are other customers.

So, what is it?

A non sequitor, a red herring, a straw man, a fallacy, irrelevent,
what it isn't is a response to my argument, neither a right, nor a
wrong response.

There it is again, this source code right thingie. And you complain about me
getting rude.

I don't complain, go ahead and serve, I'll snap. I like dozens. I just
wonder why you're such a glutten for punishement.

Again: The source code is no guarantee of fixed bugs, much less improvements.

Again: Not having source is a guarantee that one CAN NOT fix bugs.

It's not even what I want.

Yet others may not want what you want, do you think that my advice was
directed at you and your application specifically?

I also can go and tinker with the airbag of my car
if I think it's broken, I don't do that either but go to a repair shop.

Yes, and just like software, your financing contract may allow you to
go to any repair shop, or even fix it yourself if you are able to, or
it may force you into only using the repair shop of the dealer. The
later, by the way, is sometimes a rip off.

And if you are worrying about expiring licences, for many products
(purify and our oracle installation spring to mind) you get permanent
licences and pay yearly for support, so I can still use the app when the
vendor goes bust.

Who will fix the bugs when the vendor goes bust? Or compile it for
your new OS, or your new CPU? Or to link a updated library for which
there is a security patch?

And before you come again about the source code I can fix and improve,
or pay someone to do it, I won't because that would be wasting company
money and that would be because a migration is cheaper than tinkering with
the old software and it wouldn't lose us customers either because customers
When we figured out that our new CAD tool doesn't support oracle 9.2
we gave them a ding behind the ear and, see, the next release, out
in two months supports it and til then we got a workaround.
don't like dead software.

You just do whatever you want, I'm sick of talking to you, however
surely you must know that not everyone agrees with you, even if you
haven't noticed that, your reasoning is based on nothing substantial
but your insistances and pretentions, even so you are entitiled to
hold your goofy ideas. Good luck to you. Just dont bore me with what
you want, or what you do, or anything about you at all, or me for that
matter, stick to the topic or go away.

And trim your posts better, you don't need to quote every line in the
previous post, only the ones you actually respond to.

And still, if something goes wrong, I file a service request.
And if the company does ceases to offer the product I change company.

Sometimes it's best to change companies and keep the product,
sometimes it's best to abstract your code to make changing products
easier. What is your point exactly?

As I said, we pay a flatrate.

And you get what you pay for, do not imagine they will consent to
losing money on you for long if their costs go above your flat rate.

Then they lose money if they don't accomplish anything.

Right, if fixing it costs them more that what you are paying them,
then they desupport you, and you, not having source code can not find
someone who can (or will) do it cheaper, and you, thinking that
database access abstraction is a waste of time, must change your
entire application. Have fun. Your systems and data may have a short
enough life span that this works for you, do not assume that this is
the case for all applications and all data.

Yep, so I can buy support, mess up the code I've access to and let
IBM sort it out, is this what I get by using a IBM supported mysql?

Who is the developer, you or IBM? If you are hiring IBM, why are you
messing with the code? I'm sure, if you are willing to pay them
enough, IBM corporate services will indulge this crazy plan of yours,
but they will probably at least suggest you decide wether it is you
*OR* them who are developing the code, and if you already have screwed
it up, perhaps they might prefer to start with a fresh copy from MySQL
AB.

But anyway, this is nothing more than you jumping up and down again
making ludicrous examples.

If not, what's the difference to buying db2 support?
(One thing more: No, if IBM abandons mysql I'm still not taking
on the support task, ok?)

IBM corporate services will not abondon anything as long as you keep
paying, heck, this is the company that created VisaulAge Cobol and
CICS for NT, however if you do have source, you can get someone else
to take over if you chose. But I know, source code is useless, good
programming is a myth, data abstraction a waste of time, readable file
formats are for novices, and network security is nothing but humbug.
Thanks for enlightening us all. I'm sure you think normalized data
models are for pussies too.

Regards,
Dmytri Kleiner
Wide eyed heretic, who believes tabs are better than spaces, does not
have a preference between Emacs or vi, yet actually thinks coding
standards matter. Go figure.

 

[Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)]

Unfortunately you have created unneeded dependencies for them, the
worst of which is not MS SQL, since it is fairly easy to get at data
in MS SQL and archive it or export it in a usefull way, the worst is
that you have tied your customers to a terrible Operating System with
a terrible licence, even Oracle users are not so screwed since at the
very least they have a choice when it comes to OS.

I'm curious about this terrible OS you refer to. I know the one I use is
stable, hasn't crashed on me once for SQL Server on 1/2 dozen machines for
4+ years and so far has not succumbed to any security holes. Or is this
just blatant bias?

 

[Gawnsoft]

I asked first.

So, in what way is it different from let's say, buying a cucumber?

You are unlikely to be locked-in to purchase decision for your
cucumber for very long.

IME they start to go runny after only a week or two in the fridge.


--
Cheers,
Euan
Gawnsoft: http://www.gawnsoft.co.sr
Symbian/Epoc wiki: http://html.dnsalias.net:1122
Smalltalk links (harvested from comp.lang.smalltalk) http://html.dnsalias.net/gawnsoft/smalltalk

 

[Quirk]

I'm curious about this terrible OS you refer to. I know the one I use is
stable, hasn't crashed on me once for SQL Server on 1/2 dozen machines for
4+ years and so far has not succumbed to any security holes. Or is this
just blatant bias?

Eeek. Someone actually wants me to discuss Windows.

If you're really interested in learning, which I doubt, read this:

http://kirch.net/unix-nt

"Why Windows NT Server 4.0 continues to exist in the enterprise would
be a topic appropriate for an investigative report in the field of
psychology or marketing, not an article on information technology."

-- John Kirch, Networking Consultant and Microsoft Certified
Professional

NOTE TO SELF: remember to notice when groups like
comp.databases.ms-sqlserver are in the newsgroup list and remove them
in replies, lets at least maintain //some// level of quality in these
discussions.

 

[Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)]

"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" <[email protected]> wrote in

Eeek. Someone actually wants me to discuss Windows.

If you're really interested in learning, which I doubt, read this:

No, I don't seem to be the one who has the closed mind.

http://kirch.net/unix-nt

"Why Windows NT Server 4.0 continues to exist in the enterprise would
be a topic appropriate for an investigative report in the field of
psychology or marketing, not an article on information technology."

Interesting, but not the OS in question.

Thanks for playing troll.

-- John Kirch, Networking Consultant and Microsoft Certified
Professional

NOTE TO SELF: remember to notice when groups like
comp.databases.ms-sqlserver are in the newsgroup list and remove them
in replies, lets at least maintain //some// level of quality in these
discussions.

Yes, we would rather keep the level of discussion professional and based on
facts, so please, in the future excuse yourself.

 

[Jeff Rodriguez]

Beside its an opensource and supported by community, what's the fundamental
differences between PostgreSQL and those high-price commercial database (and
some are bloated such as Oracle) from software giant such as Microsoft SQL
Server, Oracle, and Sybase?

Is PostgreSQL reliable enough to be used for high-end commercial
application? Thanks

_Short Summary_

*PostgreSQL*
Free, loaded with features, not particularly fast, some extras

*MySQL*
Free, not so loaded with features, very fast, some extras

*SQL Server*
/Definetly/ not free, jam packed with features, very fast, lots of extras

*Sybase and Oracle*
Can't say, I have no experience with them.


_Answer to your question_
Suitable for a high-end commercial application? I'm not sure I would risk my job
on it...

We use SQL Server where I work and we well, beat the shit out of the server. The
hardware is backed with F.C. NAS from Network Appliance. The actual hardware is
a Dell 4-way (excluding Hyper Threading) with ~8GB of RAM and considering what a
beating the box has to endure it does really well until one of the developers
starts joining half a million records off of a table with insufficient indexes.
But I digress...

Personally, I wouldn't use it for commercial apps. The commercial solutions have
something very useful, commercial backing. This gives them the opportunity to
work on the server itself, extra features, extras like management interfaces and
clustering software.

IMHO current open source RDBMS do not have the robustness, stability, or
performance to use in mission-critical situations.

_A Message to Open Source Bible Beaters_
I'm one of you too, but I also work in a company where we make thousands of
dollars per minute. Downtime is /not/ an option and frankly, open source
databases are not quite there yet. I forsee things seriously shifting in the
next decade or so.

 

[Quirk]

[comp.databases.ms-sqlserver group removed]

*PostgreSQL*
Free, loaded with features, not particularly fast, some extras

*MySQL*
Free, not so loaded with features, very fast, some extras

*SQL Server*
/Definetly/ not free, jam packed with features, very fast, lots of extras

*Sybase and Oracle*
Can't say, I have no experience with them.

Ok, in very general terms, true enough, but of course anyone making
such a choise should ask themselves, what are my performance needs,
which features to I need, which extras do I need, etc.

_Answer to your question_

Suitable for a high-end commercial application? I'm not sure I would risk my > job on it...

But you *would* risk your Job on developing "high-end commercial"
applications for which you have no source code for dependencies, or
even perpetual access (at any cost) to the dependencies, and a sole
source for your support?

Interesting priorities your employer has, certainly no real software
developement company, like microsoft for instance, would put
themselves in
such a position, namely making their //own// software, that they have
invested there own money in developing, depend exclusively on an
//external// product, for which they only have a binary.

We use SQL Server where I work and we well, beat the shit out of the server. > The hardware is backed with F.C. NAS from Network Appliance. The actual
hardware is a Dell 4-way (excluding Hyper Threading) with ~8GB of RAM and
considering what a beating the box has to endure it does really well until
one of the developers starts joining half a million records off of a table
with insufficient indexes.
But I digress...

You do digress, so I'll take this window of offtopicness to say that
in no way am I suggesting that one should _never_ use proprietary or
closed source applications. For high end or very specialized
applications they often make a lot of sence, and are sometimes the
_only_ solution.

What I am trying to do, is to give some sensibile advice on what a
choice between closed and open source really means, namely that closed
source means an *exclusive* external dependency, when entering such a
dependency you are extreamly vulnerable and should only do so with
both eyes open, after you have determined that this is justified for
you needs. And even then, you should have an exit strategy so that
your investment is not lost when the relationship ends or the external
provider's product loses whatever advantage they had when you made the
deal.

Personally, I wouldn't use it for commercial apps. The commercial solutions
have something very useful, commercial backing. This gives them the
opportunity to work on the server itself, extra features, extras like
management interfaces and clustering software.

Commercial backing is available for //all// products, closed or open
source, except that with open source, you can chose the commercial
backer, and with closed source, you can only chose the copyright
holder.

IMHO current open source RDBMS do not have the robustness, stability, or
performance to use in mission-critical situations.

That depends on the mission. If your mission really does depend on
million record table joins, I may agree with you, if your mission
depends on being able to build new commodity-grade servers anytime you
need one, with out risking getting sued for 'over-deployment' I may
not.

_A Message to Open Source Bible Beaters_

I'm one of you too,

Then why do you preach FUD?

In anycase, open source is a good engineering practice, not a
religion, we do not need 'bible beaters' thank you.

The real 'bible beaters' are those that endlessly repeat their
metephysical belief in the infallibility of closed source vendors, and
even they can not agree on *which* closed source vendor is the real
infallible one, simular to actual bible beaters and their scriptural
disputes. The open source community are better compared to Quakers, no
source is sacred.

Most of the poor closed-source zealots do not even realize what a
small segment of the computer industry licence vending closed-source
software developers actualy are.

but I also work in a company where we make thousands of
dollars per minute.

If I where I you I would feel antsy about an application where being
down for
a minute would cost me a thousand dollars, and yet I had no source
code and was locked into a exclusive external support contract. But
good luck.

Downtime is /not/ an option and frankly,

Microsoft released an unprecedented release of eight patches that
repaired 21 security holes on April 13, how safe where you on April
12? Since you have no source code, no one knows but Microsoft (and the
hackers).

I'm glad you trust Microsoft, I would rather trust the likes of Bruce
Schneier.

open source databases are not quite there yet.

For million record table joins, perhaps not, but for large
commodity-grade clusters that can handle billions of simple
transactions, they may be, as I said, it all depends on the
application. Google, perhaps the worlds biggest database application,
doesn't use any database products at all, comercial or otherwise, but
rather uses their own specialized code built on top of as many lines
of open source code as they can their mits on.

I forsee things seriously shifting in the
next decade or so.

Really? I see the barbarians of the Open Source database world
storming the datacenters quite aggresively, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MaxDB,
Firebird, SQLite, and many other less prominent ones. And NetApp is
losing ground to the likes of DRDB. Huge powerhouses like IBM, SAP and
Novell are joining the charge, if you think the paradigm shift is a
decade off, you need get out of your chair and look out of the window
a little.

Not much longer than a decade ago there was no MS SQL Server.

 

[Quirk]

[comp.databases.ms-sqlserver removed]

Reply direct to other readers, not Greg since he may no longer get
this reply if he only reads the ms-specific group, which I am not
interested in contributing to, life is too short.

No, I don't seem to be the one who has the closed mind.

Greg thinks I have a closed mind simply because I refuse to consider
Windows,
ignoring the possibilty that I have not only considered windows but
have used it extensively in the field. Having come to a conclusion
about something is not the same as having a closed mind.

Interesting, but not the OS in question.

Yet Greg's mind is so closed, that in reponse to a detailed article
comparing Windows-based Servers to Unix servers his only response it
is //that it is not the OS in question//, meanining that it is not the
same //version// of the OS that Greg uses. Of course, as anybody with
an open mind can see, many of the issues discussed in the article hold
true. But as I guessed at first, Greg was never really interested in
learning.

Thanks for playing troll.

When you have no argument: attack the arguer.

Yes, we would rather keep the level of discussion professional and based on
facts, so please, in the future excuse yourself.

'Based on facts', if we had as much Oxygen as Greg provided facts we
would quickly suffocate.

John Kirsh, however, provided many facts, Greg's response, as typical
for the MICROS~1 zealots, was an unsubstantiated, out-of-hand
dismissal.

Thanks Greg!