RE: Is a RDBMS needed?

  • From: "Dunbar, Norman (Capgemini)" <norman.dunbar.capgemini@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <Freek.DHooge@xxxxxxxxx>, <dasebw@xxxxxx>, <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2011 10:57:16 +0100

Morning Freek,

>> So, the application will be database independent and will 
>> even work with NoSQL.
Don't you just hate hearing those words "database independence"? I know
I do.

>> Unless there will be different versions of this product, or 
>> unless there will be a different data access layer for each 
>> database, this is actually not good news.
Uniface - many years ago - was the only application builder that I would
consider as being able to provide database independence. It had an
"assignment" file which told it to use Oracle (ORA) or SQL Server (MSS)
or plain text (TXT) and so on. Whichever setting was used caused a
different database layer library to be used to query the database. It
worked and it worked well.

The last I used Uniface was at version 7, 9.4 appears to be current but
I have no idea (nor do I care!) if it is any better/worse that it was
back then. Equally good was the fact that given a lack of driver for
your own specific database back end, you could write your own, in C. I
suppose that there are other application generators out there that have
similar facilities? I'd hate to think that Uniface was the only one
doing it right.

The generated application could also run on text based consoles, GUI
screens under Windows, Motif, X11 etc with an equally simple change to
the assignment file. Same forms that were compiled just ran on almost
any device.


>> No database specific features (for which you paid) will be 
>> used, locking / concurrency will be troublesome, ...
Sequences, triggers, referential integrity, 30 character object names,
etc etc - none of these can be used "in the database" so the application
has to do it all for you. And then, someone runs a script on the
database itself and fries the application when it reads data that
"cannot possibly happen". I look after a couple of these applications.
:-(


Cheers,
Norm.

Norman Dunbar
Contract Senior Oracle DBA
Capgemini Database Team (EA)
Internal : 7 28 2051
External : 0113 231 2051


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