Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!columbia!cs!jordan
From: jordan@cs.columbia.edu (Jordan Hayes)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Ingres vs Sybase
Message-ID: <197@cs.columbia.edu>
Date: 8 May 89 14:28:06 GMT
References: <4306@elecvax.eecs.unsw.oz>
Reply-To: jordan@cs.columbia.edu (Jordan Hayes)
Followup-To: comp.databases
Organization: Citibank, NA NYC, NY (212) 735-7539
Lines: 31

Yk Chan <ykchan@elecvax.eecs.unsw.oz> asks:

	I am starting a database project on unix.

Ok, I'll bite.  I will assume the following:

	a) you're a student (university of new south wales?)
	b) by "project" you don't mean "product"
	c) you're going to want to do a lot of programming, a lot of design,
	   and a bunch of debugging
	d) you may not care much about performance issues
	e) you're looking to learn a bit through this process

I.e., you're not like most of the people who post regularly on this
newsgroup who are concerned with what to buy, why to buy, how fast is
it, and is it state of the art.  So, you'll have a much easier time.  I
think both Sybase and Ingres will suit your needs just fine.  They both
are relational databases using SQL (more or less), and they both have a
way of providing a programming interface to the database.  Your choice
will come down to an easy, philosophical question:  do you like the way
C works, or do you like the idea of an imbeded pre-processed "language"
for your development?

Sybase's DB-Library looks like C, and Ingres' EQUEL is an embedded
language that you pre-process.  With Sybase, you know where you stand.
It's neither harder nor easier to program in DB-Library than it is in
C.  For Ingres, sometimes embedded languages make things harder, if you
want to do a lot of mixing of database stuff with Unix;  sometimes it
makes it easier to prototype and debug.  Strictly religion.

/jordan