Thread: Most Advanced
Hi, For PostgreSQL We tend to use the Phrase "Most Advanced Open Source RDBMS" alot. Will this statement still hold true when/if Inprise becomes open source ? Jeff ====================================================== Jeff MacDonaldjeff@pgsql.com irc: bignose on EFnet ======================================================
"Jeff MacDonald " wrote: > > Hi, > > For PostgreSQL We tend to use the Phrase > "Most Advanced Open Source RDBMS" alot. > > Will this statement still hold true when/if > Inprise becomes open source ? Now that's a good question. If we rephrase our tag to: "Most Advanced Open Source ORDBMS" it's not a problem. However, it really depends upon what apects in which we consider ourselves to be the "Most Advanced" -- what is "Advanced" in that context? Are we advanced in terms of features, or are we advanced in terms of our development process? I believe we are advanced in both regards -- and we're certainly the most advanced when it comes to maturity of development in an open source fashion -- advanced in age in that context. Until InterBase is released open source, it remains to be seen how advanced of an open source database it will be. -- Lamar Owen WGCR Internet Radio 1 Peter 4:11
> Hi, > > For PostgreSQL We tend to use the Phrase > "Most Advanced Open Source RDBMS" alot. > > Will this statement still hold true when/if > Inprise becomes open source ? > That is my statement originally because we weren't getting good press. Yes, I don't think Inprise will match us at all. Our Object-Relational features will keep s as most advanced for the foreseeable future. -- Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 853-3000+ If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania19026
> Now that's a good question. If we rephrase our tag to: > "Most Advanced Open Source ORDBMS" it's not a problem. > > However, it really depends upon what apects in which we consider > ourselves to be the "Most Advanced" -- what is "Advanced" in that > context? Are we advanced in terms of features, or are we advanced in > terms of our development process? I believe we are advanced in both > regards -- and we're certainly the most advanced when it comes to > maturity of development in an open source fashion -- advanced in age in > that context. > > Until InterBase is released open source, it remains to be seen how > advanced of an open source database it will be. Is Interbase any good? I never heard of them much. Sounds like it is a PC database like dbase, right? They don't scale very well. -- Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 853-3000+ If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania19026
Bruce Momjian wrote: > > Until InterBase is released open source, it remains to be seen how > > advanced of an open source database it will be. > Is Interbase any good? I never heard of them much. Sounds like it is a > PC database like dbase, right? They don't scale very well. Well, rummaging around the interbase.com website, I found an introductory whitepaper that lists their features. Check http://www.interbase.com/downloads/what_is_ib.pdf for more info. It seems to be an interesting system. To summarize its features (going quickly against the PDF referenced above): Client-server architecture; SQL parser in server; Server side triggers; Stored Procedures; User-defined functions; Event alerters (that notify clients of database changes); Declarative Referential Integrity with cascading operations; Domains and contstraints extend SQL types; Automatic two-phase commit to stabilize distributed mulit-database transactions; Cross-platform scalability and interoperability; Small footprint (3MB disk for minimum, ~20MB for full install) Up to 150 concurrent clients; Y2K correct; Implements entry level SQL-92, plus many intermediate level features and selected features from the full level; InterBase Corp has voting member status in the ANSI SQL standards committee, X3H2; SQL Roles for group-level security; SQL-92 syntax for inner and outer JOIN clauses; Views on tables and joins; Select procedures (that return not a value, but a result set); Full transactional operation; MultiGenerational Architecture (basically the same as our MVCC); Row-level locking; Multiple concurrent transactions on a per-client basis -- each client can have multiple concurrent transactions; Distributed transactions -- a single transaction can be open against multiple databases, with a two-phase commit; BLOBs; Arrays (implemented as structured BLOBs); BLOB filter functions (such as a JPEG to PNG translator); Cost-analysis query optimization; On Unix systems, the InterBase security can be integrated with OS security; Internationalization support, including UNICODE; Integration with Borland JBuilder; ODBC client; Automatic garbage collection -- no vacuum; No preallocation of disk space required -- files up to 4GB in size, with expansion through the use of secondary files (similar to our segmentation); Full ACID compliance. That's the short version. I don't see stuff like: Ability to use Tcl and Perl in stored procedural functions; Object Relational in nature; Endlessly extensible for types, languages, functions, etc. (I especially like that one). And other features of PostgreSQL that we know and love. Nor do I see as many supported architectures. -- Lamar Owen WGCR Internet Radio 1 Peter 4:11
On Tue, 15 Feb 2000, Bruce Momjian wrote: > Is Interbase any good? I never heard of them much. Sounds like it is a > PC database like dbase, right? They don't scale very well. "InterBase is an enterprise-level database system used by firms and agencies like Nokia, MCI, Northern Telecom, NASA, the US Army, and Boeing. Despite its speed and capabilities, it has been a well-kept secret and holds an insignificant share of the relational database market. Growth of that market has slowed, reducing chance for InterBase to increase its share as a proprietary product." Although they do stand in the tradition of dBase and Paradox, they do appear to be a serious product. This URL might give you an idea what kind of SQL (and beyond) they support. <http://www.interbase.com/products/dsqlsyntax.html> Also, they seem to have an edge (against us) in the areas of logging (journaling) and distributed stuff. Their client languages seem to concentrate around Delphi, C++, and Java. I am just wondering how/whether they will be able to enlist any outside developers in significant masses. (see also Mozilla) -- Peter Eisentraut Sernanders vaeg 10:115 peter_e@gmx.net 75262 Uppsala http://yi.org/peter-e/ Sweden
Lamar Owen wrote: > > Bruce Momjian wrote: > > > Until InterBase is released open source, it remains to be seen how > > > advanced of an open source database it will be. > > > Is Interbase any good? I never heard of them much. Sounds like it is a > > PC database like dbase, right? They don't scale very well. IIRC it was missing shared cache between backends. > It seems to be an interesting system. To summarize its features (going > quickly against the PDF referenced above): I try putting a + or - based on weather PG has it (please correct me) +> Client-server architecture; +> SQL parser in server; +> Server side triggers; +> Stored Procedures; +> User-defined functions; +> Event alerters (that notify clients of database changes); Actually or LISTEN/NOTIFY would could use some improvement, it would be much more powerful if it allowed even a single argument to be passed. +> Declarative Referential Integrity with cascading operations; Will be in 7.0 ? -> Domains and contstraints extend SQL types; ?> Automatic two-phase commit to stabilize distributed mulit-database transactions; +> Cross-platform scalability and interoperability; +> Small footprint (3MB disk for minimum, ~20MB for full install) PG should be about the same size +> Up to 150 concurrent clients; What is the upper limit for PG ? +> Y2K correct; +> Implements entry level SQL-92, plus many intermediate level features and selected features from the full level; -> InterBase Corp has voting member status in the ANSI SQL standards committee, X3H2; Is this the bunch of guys we often fondly remember for their SQL3 standard ? -> SQL Roles for group-level security; +> SQL-92 syntax for inner and outer JOIN clauses; Will be in 7.0 ? +> Views on tables and joins; -> Select procedures (that return not a value, but a result set); This requires a rewrite of the pl function API +> Full transactional operation; +> MultiGenerational Architecture (basically the same as our MVCC); ?> Row-level locking; How are we doing here ? ?> Multiple concurrent transactions on a per-client basis -- each client can have multiple concurrent transactions; If client==connection, then we don't have it, if we opened a connection per trx we do -> Distributed transactions -- a single transaction can be open against multiple databases, with a two-phase commit; Support for multi-db is generally weak in PG. A single connction can work only with one db at a time +> BLOBs; We have LOs, but the implementation is nut usable for more than a few on most UNIX filesystems (we have one LO per file, all in the same directory with everything else) +> Arrays (implemented as structured BLOBs); But nut implemented as structured BLOBS ;) +> BLOB filter functions (such as a JPEG to PNG translator); Could be done easily, but not included in distribution at least. +> Cost-analysis query optimization; +> On Unix systems, the InterBase security can be integrated with OS security; +> Internationalization support, including UNICODE; Do we have UNICODE (or just several other MB charsets)? -> Integration with Borland JBuilder; No intgration but can be used from it +> ODBC client; -> Automatic garbage collection -- no vacuum; Implementing it to be _fully_ automatic would make it very hard to re-introduce time travel. We have it semi-automatic using psql -c "vacuum;" in cron ;-p +> No preallocation of disk space required -- files up to 4GB in size, with expansion through the use of secondary files(similar to our segmentation); +> Full ACID compliance. > > That's the short version. > > I don't see stuff like: +> Ability to use Tcl and Perl in stored procedural functions; -> Object Relational in nature; Maybe we should rephrase it to "Object Relational by ancestry". We have very few OR features currently in working order, and probably won't before 7.1. Chris Bitmead has patches for making inherited tables work right (for SELECT,DELETE,UPDATE), but they won't probably be included in 7.0 as they change the behaviour of the only statment (SELECT) that is currently working to some extent and some of the core developers seem to be dependent on the old behaviour, i.e using inheritance as a shortcut for including the same set of columns in an unrelated table. Also people were set back by SQL3 standard which pg should (?) follow to some extent at least, but which is incomprehensible when read directly and which can only be understood through the works of apostles ;) +> Endlessly extensible for types, languages, functions, etc. (I especially like that one). Otoh, they have implemented DOMAINS, which allow much of simpler types to be done at SQL level. They won't probably be indexable. ------------------- Hannu
> On Tue, 15 Feb 2000, Bruce Momjian wrote: > > > Is Interbase any good? I never heard of them much. Sounds like it is a > > PC database like dbase, right? They don't scale very well. > > "InterBase is an enterprise-level database system used by firms and > agencies like Nokia, MCI, Northern Telecom, NASA, the US Army, and Boeing. > Despite its speed and capabilities, it has been a well-kept secret and > holds an insignificant share of the relational database market. Growth of > that market has slowed, reducing chance for InterBase to increase its > share as a proprietary product." > > Although they do stand in the tradition of dBase and Paradox, they do > appear to be a serious product. This URL might give you an idea what kind > of SQL (and beyond) they support. > > <http://www.interbase.com/products/dsqlsyntax.html> > > Also, they seem to have an edge (against us) in the areas of logging > (journaling) and distributed stuff. Their client languages seem to > concentrate around Delphi, C++, and Java. > > I am just wondering how/whether they will be able to enlist any outside > developers in significant masses. (see also Mozilla) Yes, that is a key question. I know Solaris got criticized about over their new "Solaris" open-source license, and I heard the Monzilla/Netscape code was so ugly that the open source effort is going very slowly. Honestly, a big part of success is atmosphere and code structure. Without both of those, it is pretty slow going. It is hard to imagine how anyone would _new_ would start working on Interbase rather than PostgreSQL because of our good reputation. Also, Corel bough Inprise/Borland, so there is no way of knowing what will happen with Interbase now. I just heard that the new WordPerfect Office will run under WINE(yuck) rather than native Linux/Unix. That is quite bad and a clear failure for Corel IMHO. Corel doesn't seem to be very good at enlisting assistance in open source projects. The developed their _own_ version of WINE to get Word Perfect Office out the door, and they say they will merge their changes in "later" to main WINE distribution. Their WINE source is accessible, though. -- Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 853-3000+ If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania19026
On Tue, 15 Feb 2000, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Also, Corel bough Inprise/Borland, so there is no way of knowing what
> will happen with Interbase now. I just heard that the new WordPerfect
> Office will run under WINE(yuck) rather than native Linux/Unix. That
> is quite bad and a clear failure for Corel IMHO. Corel doesn't seem
> to be very good at enlisting assistance in open source projects. The
> developed their _own_ version of WINE to get Word Perfect Office out
> the door, and they say they will merge their changes in "later" to
> main WINE distribution. Their WINE source is accessible, though.
Actually, I think you might be looking at this wrong ... figure that Corel
is putting resources into making WINE a viable "engine" to running
Micro$loth applications ... WINE is open source.
Now, which is better/easier? Re-code Wordperfect Office (one app) to run
natively, or improve an open source application so that Linux/Unix can run
any existing Micro$loth product? Which is cheaper in the long run?
If they were starting WordPerfect from scratch, okay ... but how many
hundreds of thousands of lines of Windoze specific code is in
WP-Office? :)
Marc G. Fournier ICQ#7615664 IRC Nick: Scrappy
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: scrappy@hub.org secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org
> Actually, I think you might be looking at this wrong ... figure that Corel > is putting resources into making WINE a viable "engine" to running > Micro$loth applications ... WINE is open source. > > Now, which is better/easier? Re-code Wordperfect Office (one app) to run > natively, or improve an open source application so that Linux/Unix can run > any existing Micro$loth product? Which is cheaper in the long run? > > If they were starting WordPerfect from scratch, okay ... but how many > hundreds of thousands of lines of Windoze specific code is in > WP-Office? :) I have never been very confident about emulation of any form. Also, if Corel has Inprise and Corel Linux, you would think it would be worth making the port to a _real_ operating system. -- Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 853-3000+ If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania19026
* Jeff MacDonald <jeff@pgsql.com> <jeffm@pgsql.com> [000215 07:33] wrote: > Hi, > > For PostgreSQL We tend to use the Phrase > "Most Advanced Open Source RDBMS" alot. > > Will this statement still hold true when/if > Inprise becomes open source ? Depending on the license it could become "Most Advanced Really Open Source RDBMS" And who says that it will actually be more advanced? -Alfred
Bruce Momjian wrote: > > > Actually, I think you might be looking at this wrong ... figure that Corel > > is putting resources into making WINE a viable "engine" to running > > Micro$loth applications ... WINE is open source. > > > > Now, which is better/easier? Re-code Wordperfect Office (one app) to run > > natively, or improve an open source application so that Linux/Unix can run > > any existing Micro$loth product? Which is cheaper in the long run? > > > > If they were starting WordPerfect from scratch, okay ... but how many > > hundreds of thousands of lines of Windoze specific code is in > > WP-Office? :) > > I have never been very confident about emulation of any form. Also, if > Corel has Inprise and Corel Linux, you would think it would be worth > making the port to a _real_ operating system. AFAIIC they are just using WINE as their cross-platform toolkit, same as Mozilla does with theirs XPCOM (or whatever it's called;). I don't see any of the GUI toolkits as basically better than others (though I have used lately wxPython). And cross-platform is important nowadays - even in my small company there are developers using Linux,BeOS,Win32 and Macs and it is counterproductive if we have to use some important tool that isnt available for some platform or can't be run remotely (over http/html or X11) --------------- Hannu
On Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 12:04:54AM +0200, Hannu Krosing wrote: > Bruce Momjian wrote: > > > > > Actually, I think you might be looking at this wrong ... figure that Corel > > > is putting resources into making WINE a viable "engine" to running > > > Micro$loth applications ... WINE is open source. > > > > > > Now, which is better/easier? Re-code Wordperfect Office (one app) to run > > > natively, or improve an open source application so that Linux/Unix can run > > > any existing Micro$loth product? Which is cheaper in the long run? > > > > > > If they were starting WordPerfect from scratch, okay ... but how many > > > hundreds of thousands of lines of Windoze specific code is in > > > WP-Office? :) > > > > I have never been very confident about emulation of any form. Also, if > > Corel has Inprise and Corel Linux, you would think it would be worth > > making the port to a _real_ operating system. > > AFAIIC they are just using WINE as their cross-platform toolkit, same as > Mozilla > does with theirs XPCOM (or whatever it's called;). > I don't see any of the GUI toolkits as basically better than others (though I > have used lately wxPython). > And cross-platform is important nowadays - even in my small company there are > developers using Linux,BeOS,Win32 and Macs and it is counterproductive if we > have to use some important tool that isnt available for some platform or can't > be run remotely (over http/html or X11) I've been following WINE development longer than PostgreSQL, so I think I should comment on this. Hannu's exactly right: WINE Is Not an Emulator, it's an implementation of the Win32 API on top of Unix/X (well, mostly Linux, but they do occasionally get someone testing on *BSD). Given that, there _is_ a second component: implementation of the Win32 ABI. This is the wine executable that sometimes gets called the "emulator". The API implementation requires recompiling your Win32 targeted code - this is a 'winlib' app. The wine executable knows all about loading Windows format binaries, so you can run Windows _binaries_ directly. Such a clean distinction didn't really exist, at first. Since _most_ Windows programs that people wanted to run where binary only, and the idea that companies might actually recompile their code for the Linux market (what market?) was somewhat laughed at, the WINE project started as an ABI emulation, and only fairly recently has restructured, to include both. The eventual goal is the the wine executable will just be another winlib app, just like any other, it just knows how to read a Windows binary, and do any fix-up needed. As to Corel's work with WINE: their developers (and their contractors) have had their own, until quite recently private, tree, but they have been pushing patches out to the public tree on a regular basis, and participating in design discussions on the public mailing lists. The recent opening of their tree seems to me to have come about to alleviate the problem of needing to push patches out, as release deadline pressures neared. In fact, that was explicitly mentioned by one of their developers, who invited everyone to generate patch sets and submit them to the open tree. The use of WINE as opposed to 'native' I read as "Win32 binary" rather than winlib, ELF binary. Ross -- Ross J. Reedstrom, Ph.D., <reedstrm@rice.edu> NSBRI Research Scientist/Programmer Computer and Information Technology Institute Rice University, 6100 S. Main St., Houston, TX 77005
On Tue, 15 Feb 2000, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > Actually, I think you might be looking at this wrong ... figure that Corel
> > is putting resources into making WINE a viable "engine" to running
> > Micro$loth applications ... WINE is open source.
> >
> > Now, which is better/easier? Re-code Wordperfect Office (one app) to run
> > natively, or improve an open source application so that Linux/Unix can run
> > any existing Micro$loth product? Which is cheaper in the long run?
> >
> > If they were starting WordPerfect from scratch, okay ... but how many
> > hundreds of thousands of lines of Windoze specific code is in
> > WP-Office? :)
>
> I have never been very confident about emulation of any form. Also, if
> Corel has Inprise and Corel Linux, you would think it would be worth
> making the port to a _real_ operating system.
I've gotten 4 Windoze users at work converted over to FreeBSD over the
past month or so, the latest one being as a result of VMWare ... now they
can run all their Windoze programs that they require without having to
dual-boot into Windoze when they need to ...
If the emulation is done well enough, the end result is a much broader set
of applications while still running a *good* operating system ... the blue
screen of death doesn't require rebooting a whole computer :)
Marc G. Fournier ICQ#7615664 IRC Nick: Scrappy
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: scrappy@hub.org secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org
> have had their own, until quite recently private, tree, but they have > been pushing patches out to the public tree on a regular basis, and > participating in design discussions on the public mailing lists. The > recent opening of their tree seems to me to have come about to alleviate > the problem of needing to push patches out, as release deadline pressures > neared. In fact, that was explicitly mentioned by one of their developers, > who invited everyone to generate patch sets and submit them to the open > tree. The use of WINE as opposed to 'native' I read as "Win32 binary" > rather than winlib, ELF binary. Quite interesting. I can see a Win32 compatible library as quite handy. -- Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 853-3000+ If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania19026