On 09/02/2014 05:46 AM, David G Johnston wrote:
> The goal of adding PL/SQL would be to increase the user base of the project
> and hopefully attract new blood to the development team in order to maximize
> long-term survivability and increase the pace of innovation. We would be
> unable to introduce substantial evolution to this language for that very
> reason and so a different language is likely to be needed - eventually.
Sure - but it can be done out of core, with core patches only as
required for making things that aren't currently possible work.
You'd need to solve some really hard problems though. Autonomous
transactions and top-level true "procedures" being the big ones. You'd
also need to handle multiple result sets, TABLE-typed variables (backed
with a tuplestore, maybe?), and lots more.
Most of the differences between PL/SQL and PL/PgSQL stem from underlying
differences in PostgresSQL and Oracle, as Tom has already pointed out.
Often PostgreSQL limitations that don't exist in Oracle. So you'd have a
lot of work to do in core to make a usefully-better-than-PL/PgSQL PL/SQL
implementation possible.
If someone came up with a convincing PL/SQL compatibility layer then
it'd be worth considering adopting - when it was ready. But of course,
anyone who does the work for that is quite likely to want to sell it to
cashed-up Oracle users looking to save a few hundred grand on per-CPU
licensing.
-- Craig Ringer http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services
