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From: benl@adt.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Ben.Lheureux)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: SQL Poser
Summary: Don't discredit SQL portability
Keywords: portability
Message-ID: <548@iss-rb.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Date: 5 Jun 90 06:02:02 GMT
References: <6588@umd5.umd.edu> <jkrueger.644204650@dgis.dtic.dla.mil> <1990Jun1.132731.6699@oracle.com> <jkrueger.644437146@dgis.dtic.dla.mil> <1990Jun4.151555.3479@oracle.com>
Sender: news@iss-rb.SanDiego.NCR.COM
Reply-To: benl@adt.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Ben.Lheureux)
Organization: NCR Corporation, Rancho Bernardo
Lines: 45

In article <1990Jun4.151555.3479@oracle.com> tgreenla@oracle.UUCP (Terry Greenlaw) writes:
>In article <jkrueger.644437146@dgis.dtic.dla.mil> jkrueger@dgis.dtic.dla.mil (Jon) writes:
>>
>>> Oracle has an extension to SQL which was designed for tree traversal
>>
>>Sounds great.  Except for one small problem: the only reason I use
>>SQL is compatibility and applications portability.
>
>Then you must be one very frustrated individual, since SQL compatability 
>between
>vendors falls into the "virgin nymphomaniac" class of events. I don't think SQL
>is mature enough at this point to freeze expansion of the language in the name
>of compatability. 

Let's not forget that every vendor's ME-TOO desire to support SQL and the 
relational model provided -- for the first time -- a meaningful level of
compatibility among divergent DMS's.  

Unfortunately because SQL is not SQL is not SQL, there is a strong desire 
to identify a commonly used subset of SQL features among vendors, so that 
the highly marketed compatibility supposedly provided by SQL can actually 
be realized by users.  I.e. formation of SAG, Ingres Open SQL, etc.

>The extensions that Oracle and other vendors have provided
>are the driving forces that will lead to a language robust enough to be used 
>in a unextended form. 

A convenient position to take, since Oracle just happens to have one of 
the (perhaps THE) most robust SQL languages :-)   Exceptions anyone?

>For now, the basic SQL syntax is a good starting point
>for understanding a relational query language, but I wouldn't be relying on it
>for portability across vendors.

I'm sure your disclaimer disqualifies you from speaking for all Oracle
Marketing organizations, but perhaps you can reconcile this position
with Oracle's HIGHLY-TOUTED SQL*Star concept, where Oracle applications,
presumably carefully coded in THE WONDERFUL, COMPATIBLE SQL language may 
transparently run against Oracle, DB2, SQL/DS, or <name of your favorite
version of SQL*Connect here>?

Benoit.Lheureux@sandiego.NCR.COM      ####################################
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