Re: Re: [PATCHES] Select parser at runtime

On Sun, Aug 12, 2001 at 10:21:55PM -0400, Vince Vielhaber wrote:
>
> If you think that people are going to flock to PostgreSQL from Oracle
> simply because it's a drop in replacement, I want some of whatever it
> is you're drinking!
>
> An Oracle compatibility mode wouldn't be a bad idea, but at what cost
> and at how much effort? What are you going to do with incompatible
> reserved words? Who do you expect to do it? How soon? I've seen
> alot of projects try to make themselves "user-friendly" only to suffer
> in the end from what they lost in the effort.
>
> Personally I'd prefer a PostgreSQL that was as SQL92 and beyond as it
> could possibly be rather than some of this and some of that.

Compatability modes have a good side and a bad side: they make it easy for
DBAs to move existing installations to your product at little cost, then
slowly upgrade to using native features. The OpenACS project would have
loved to have this possibility. Many of our current Oracle compatability
features came about to ease such ports, right?

However, they suffer from the problem of allowing continued operation in
'compatability' mode: there is no incentive for DB using project to use
the native interfaces or capabilites, even if they are better. This
is how OS/2's Windows compatabilty mode killed it in the long term:
the 'defacto standard' problem. Would the OpenACS project even exist,
if a full Oracle mode had existed at the time?

So, I think you're right, in the long run it's best to conform to an open
standard than try to chase a commercial product.

Ross

P.S. Of course, as an open project, anyone can write anything they
want. If we end up with a 'better Oracle than Oracle', so be it.