[Info-vax] HP wins Oracle Itanium case

[David Froble]

Bob Koehler wrote:
> In article <k12o7j$8ba$1 at dont-email.me>, Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> writes:
>> That much is obvious.  My gripe is that what's available isn't enough.  
> 
>    OK, we could always use more.
> 
>>  (And beyond sequential configuration files and such, and SQL 
>> databases, how many folks are actually poking around inside the data 
>> storage files of an unrelated application?)
> 
>    How many folks pass data from on application to another?  How many
>    times is the choice of best language for those two applications
>    not the same?
> 
>    And, oh by the way, if it is an application which is best served
>    by using a DBMS, then use one.  And in the meantime, count me out.
>    If it needs a DBMS then its not the kind of application I'm
>    interested in working on.
> 
>    And I don't have trouble finding work.
> 

I've used Microsoft's SQL 2000.  I've read that the product was first put 
together for Microsoft by Sybase, but that isn't relevant.

Usage is different, and takes some time to understand.  For instance, getting a 
data structure (recordset) containing all your requested data and then working 
with that.  Sort of like building a sort file, sorting, and then working with 
the sorted data.

The data retrieval capabilities of a relational database are impressive.  Makes 
me wonder if it's all cached up in memory.

When it comes to writing, updating, locking, and to a lesser extent adding, I'm 
not very impressed with a relational database.  I've advised in the past to use 
something lean and mean to do ongoing processing, and place the historical 
information in a relational database for retrieval.

YMMV