Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!hal!ncoast!telotech!bsa From: bsa@telotech.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: Oracle: Previous Record Message-ID: <1989Jul28.152920.883@telotech.uucp> Date: 28 Jul 89 15:29:20 GMT References: <20645@cup.portal.com> <259@accur8.UUCP> Sender: bsa@telotech.uucp (Brandon S. Allbery) Reply-To: bsa@telotech.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) Organization: _ telotech, inc. - Beachwood, OH Lines: 41 In-reply-to: emuleomo@accur8.UUCP (Olumide Emuleomo) In article <259@accur8.UUCP>, emuleomo@accur8 (Olumide Emuleomo) writes: +--------------- | I seems to me that peaople are just finding excuses for why FETCH PREVIOUS | is not implemented in ORACLE. I have seen this grouse several times. +--------------- Not really. The only reason FETCH NEXT is implemented is that few C programs can handle getting 200,000 rows back from a query all at the same time. SQL is a *batch* language, not an interactive one! I fail to understand why anyone would want to use SQL for interactive purposes. (Of course, I fail to understand why anyone would use SQL at all....) +--------------- | If people need a FETCH PREVIOUS, why doesnt ORACLE Corp just implement it? | Afterall it is implemented in SQL/FORMS. Right? +--------------- SQL*Forms is interactive. The main underlying problem seems to be that people want to write their screen interfaces to Oracle databases (I don't blaim them, SQL*Forms sucks). The problem is that SQL itself is not designed for such hackery; Informix added scrollable cursors primarily so they could bring Perform back up to the same level of functionality it had under 3.3 (pre-SQL). +--------------- | For people who really NEED FETCH PREVIOUS, take a look at INFORMIX SQL.!! +--------------- Or any DBMS which isn't constrained by a batch language: Unify 4.0/Unify 2000, Informix 3.3, Progress, etc. (C'mon, SQL was developed by IBM for use on mainframes. You expect it to be interactive?) ++Brandon -- Brandon S. Allbery @ telotech, inc. (I do not speak for telotech. Ever.) *This article may only be redistributed if all articles listed in the header's* * References: field, and all articles listing this one in their References: * * fields, are also redistributed. *