Re: Why isn't Java support part of Postgresql core?

On 15/09/2014 7:58 AM, Bill Moran wrote:
> On Sun, 14 Sep 2014 22:22:21 -0700 (PDT)
> cowwoc <cowwoc(at)bbs(dot)darktech(dot)org> wrote:
>> Out of curiosity, why is Postgresql's Java support so poor?
> To trampoline off what others have said: it gets implemented and maintained if
> people want/need it.
>
> But I feel like I have a little more insight into _why_ people aren't taking
> the effort, based on experience at my last job.
>
> We were interested in both pl/Java and pl/PHP. In theory, both of those would
> allow us to leverage both existing codebases and existing developer skills. We
> were looking at taking an active role in maintainership of these two languages
> to facilitate our use.
>
> In practice, the amount of code in existing code bases that would be reused for
> stored procedures turned out to be very low. Additionally, the number of
> developers who had difficulty adapting to plPGSQL programming was 0. As a
> result, we found that, in practice, the existing pl/SQL and plPGSQL were
> _good_enough_ and there was so little benefit from using other languages that
> we couldn't justify the effort of ensuring they worked consistently.
>
> From a meta standpoint, it feels like pl/Java and others are really neat ideas
> that simply aren't _necessary_ (although they're nice to have). When it comes
> down to work done for employer, it was just less effort to succeed by going the
> route of using the existing plSQL/plPGSQL, and employers are all about less
> money spent to accomplish the goal.
>
> Other people may have other opinions or stories or whatever. That's mine.

I'm very glad you posted this because I was thinking the same but needed
someone to reinforce my views. pl/pgsql is beginning to look like the
lesser evil to getting pl/java to work. Sad but true.

I strongly believe that pl/java would catapult the expressiveness of
triggers to a new level, but getting this off the ground will require
the concerted effort of 2-3 dedicated developers.

Gili