Man this stuff is a breath of fresh air... Here is what I found out in one
very long day today, exactly replicated by you!
Good stuff Nic, but it doesn't fix the problem that a load of sheep out
there are going for this crap, and by doing so substantially diminshing the
quality of my life!
10 marks for a succinct and delightfull precis of my day of discovering SQL7
in depth!
Cheers,
Tony.
-----Original Message-----
From: Nic Wise <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Multiple recipients of list database <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Monday, 8 November 1999 19:46
Subject: Re: [DUG-DB]: Cascade deletes using Triggers in SQL7 V Interbase
IMO, and I came to this conclusion a LONG time before I worked for
inprise:
MSSQL(6.5, 7 is only a _little_ better) is a piece of stinkey crap. Well
marketed crap, but crap never the less.
I had a presentation somewhere on just how BAD it was, I think I still
have it somewhere on my laptop. Try this:
1. Only "after" triggers. Whats the point? (oh, and the manuals
recommend you use triggers for cascade delete/update. BUT HOW?)
2. Log files. REALLY stupid idea, I (and others) generally have to clear
them out every few days/weeks, or expand the segement. SS7 has 'got
around' this by allowing log and data partitions to expand dynamically
(what a concept!), but it still sucks.
3. transactions. Try this:
begin transaction bob --yes, it allows named transactions
insert into something
begin transaction bob2
insert into something else
rollback transaction bob2
-- oops, no, you just rolled back ALL of it, 'cos there is only 1
transaction state held!!
etc.
4. you have to tune it. That sucks, IMO, unless you employ a DBA, then
you really should do it properly and get Oracle on Unix. (or (anything)
on Unix)
5. Its SO tied into NT that it hogs the entire machine, basically it
asks NT to release memory so it can have some more (please). Would be
nice to find THAT documented API call, no?
Whats good about it:
1. Support is OK - there are so many (misguided) people using it, that
there is a lot of docs on how to get around the crap problems. Note that
I said "support is OK", not "MS's support is OK", 'cos MS, as a support
organisation, is TOTALLY CLUELESS! Anyone with any knowledge is NOT
selling it, they are USING it
2. The add-on stuff (OLAP stuff, mostly) is quite nice, tho a lot of it
can be used over any DB....
the only way I can see that it 'wins' is:
1. Its 'free' with BackOffice
2. Its 'free' with MSDN (same diff)
3. Its marketed VERY well, like most MS stuff.
4. Its got a good set of support utils (bcp etc), tho most of them are
from Sybase.
> like a 2 decade time warp - the wrong way! Is there anything about is good
> as IB?
No, tho Interbase is not short of its faults. Its definatly not the
fastest, tho it _is_ the fastest to recover if NT dies (who uncommon!)
IB 6 problems are small by comparison. A handfull of minor bugs easily
avoided.
Enough MS bagging for the day. They are getting enough crap from the MS
DOJ...
N
In a recent SQL7 V IB argument this interesting response to another persons
pro Log File argument came up. I find it usefull just in case of terrorist
attack!
Quote from IB List
..... but nothing can give 100% guarantee
>of data safety. You must keep in mind things like that: what will happen
>if some terrorist (or fired programmer) will come to my office and trow
>hand grenade to DB server? Do you think transaction logs will help you?
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