Rick Hillegas wrote: > I'm afraid I'm having a hard time figuring out Derby's relationship to > what might be called standards. The following principles seem to be > regularly advocated: > > 1) Derby should avoid inventing its own syntax and apis. > > 2) Instead, Derby should adopt syntax and apis endorsed by the > following authorities: > > - ANSI SQL 2003 > - JDBC 4.0 > - JSRs > - Other Apache projects > > From time to time, other authorities are recommended even though they > conflict with principle (2): > > 3) Non-ANSI syntax used by popular databases like Oracle, DB2, > Postgres, and MySQL. > > 4) Constraints imposed by DRDA. > > Principle (3) proves to be particularly nettlesome since the popular > databases often disagree. As we expand Derby, I would like to > understand how we reconcile these principles. Perhaps, first, we > should state what Derby hopes to gain by compliance. The following > benefits might apply: > > A) Familiar syntax and apis encourage developers to use Derby for new > embedded applications. > > B) Compatible syntax and apis encourage migration of old applications > to Derby from other databases. > > C) Compatible syntax and apis make it easy to scale up usage of a > Derby-developed application by migrating it to an enterprise-calibre > dbms. > I feel a bit like the Lorax speaking for the trees, but here goes....
In the case of existing syntax, I don't think we should remove or even deprecate it in a lot of instances, but it would be great to introduce a standard alternative. I think it important to consider the installed user base and the advantage keeping the current syntax working provides. D) Users find their applications still work when they upgrade. Kathey
