http://www.idkfa.com/v3 idkfa: syndicated http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=5011&msg_id=5011 I have to tell someone. At work, we use Oracle relational databases. Oracle databases, if you aren't familiar, are geared for very large, very complex operations, suited for massive companies storing decades worth of information. Oracle is at once revered for its reliability and reviled for its complexity and capability for obfuscation. It hails from the late 80's to early 90's, when computers were just coming out of their monolithic, batch processing days, where COBOL scripts ruled the world, and data management was very, very hard. It serves its purpose, but it takes an incredible amount of resources, both human and computer, to keep them running. Oracle's proponents and experts are... consistently interesting people. In my experience, they are either older folks, having been elbows deep in Oracle's guts for decades, now cynical and war-worn, or younger people who are seeking professional legitimacy by putting "Oracle" on their resume. Oracle veterans have the opinion that if something can be done on the database, it should be done on the database, given the performance gains from calculating things on the database rather than having to wait for network transfer, parsing, etc. Often, this is a reasonable policy, as the database can more easily and succinctly perform common types of calculations better than you would if you were to reinvent such a wheel. Oracle newbies adopt this premise wholesale with the promise of Oracle's superior performance and limited scope to make up for their lack of knowledge of the computing world. I know, because I have been the Oracle newbie. However, I have the benefit of having seen the other sides of the fence. Database technology, or rather, "data persistence layers," have come a long way since Oracle was new. Forward thinking companies big enough to warrant the use of Oracle (like Google) now rarely use products like Oracle not only for their exorbitant kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Look down, look down... Fri, 15 Mar 2013 01:57:01 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=5011&msg_id=5011