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

On Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 10:22 PM, cowwoc <cowwoc(at)bbs(dot)darktech(dot)org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Out of curiosity, why is Postgresql's Java support so poor? I am
> specifically looking for the ability to write triggers in Java.
>

Because it hasn't been a priority of contributors. This is how
non-single-vendor open source projects work: people decide what is
important to them and do the work required. If something gets neglected
then I guess it wasn't really important.

>
> I took a look at the PL/Java project and it looked both incomplete and
> dead,
> yet other languages like Javascript are taking off. I would have expected
> to
> see very strong support for Java because it's the most frequently used
> language on the server-side.
>

I think Javascript is taking off because JSON is taking off. The problem
with Java is that while there are plenty of use cases for it in the db, it
isn't something which there are *common* use cases for.

> What's going on? Why isn't this a core language supported alongside SQL,
> Perl and Python as part of the core project?
>

I have a few questions on this, the answers of which may help answer your
question:

1. How well does having a server-side JVM work, resource-wise, when you
have a forked process model like PostgreSQL? Does having the additional
JVM's pose performance and competition for resources that lighter languages
would not?

2. What is your specific use case for a trigger in Java?