[Info-vax] Oracle on VMS

[BillPedersen]

On Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 3:45:36 PM UTC-5, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 11/19/16 10:26 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> > On 11/19/2016 4:40 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> >> Might be worth a look.  Just so people understand where I am coming
> >> from, I am not really interested in either of the databases but I am
> >> interested in how embedded SQL is implemented on the commercial DBs
> >> because I am trying to look into implementing it for open source DBs
> >> and GnuCOBOL.
> >
> > That sounds like a very interesting project.
> 
> Gotta do something to keep me busy.
> 
> >
> > May I ask what databases you are targeting?
> 
> Probably Postgres first but once I do the first one adding
> others will be much easier.
> 
> >
> > And whether you want to implement the pre-compiler in Cobol?
> 
> I have thought of that, too.  It has pluses and minuses but it is
> definitely doable.  I also have an example partial pre-compiler for
> C that is done in awk and yacc and the permission of the author to
> extend it or develop further along those lines.
> 
> Unless someone decides they need a really good COBOL (or Fortran
> for that matter) programmer I am going to have plenty of time on
> my hands.  Would like to write a book, too, but not sure it is
> worth the effort as not beng an established tech book writer I
> have doubts of anyone actually being willing to buy it.
> 
> bill

Well we do not yet have Postgres on VMS.  There are a couple stumbling points that have gotten in the way.  Shared Stream IO to files to allow multiple writers and byte-range locking in the same context as the SSIO.  There are two features  which several "data" sharing applications running on Linux/Unix quite often have in common and they are the biggest stumbling points of getting these sorts of software to run on VMS effectively.

Both Postgres and Samba have issues related to the lack of these features.  This topic was discussed a bit during the October Open Source On OpenVMS Conference Call.  Not that we had an epiphany and solved the problems but as a discussion topic to at least high light the issue.

So, if someone came up with some "magic" to facilitate these requirements in a VMS Cluster then we would really like to talk to you.

Obviously there are some things that can be done, but it then gets into an issue of whether you can maintain the basic architecture of the applications  or if you are creating something that is entirely dependent on VMS.  The big issue for all of these sort of things if trying to minimize or eliminate ANY changes to the original source code of the application.

Sometimes it just "works".  At other times then there are major issues that make it such that it just an not be done that way.

Good luck with your project.

Best,
Bill.