Jaguar - Ubiquitous databasing included?

[Gibbons Burke]

In my pre-WWDC Scientific Wild-Assed Guess post to the list about what would be announced in the Stevenote, one of the things I suggested would be announced was a resurrection of EOF/dbKit capabilities in the system along with development tools which would give Cocoa developers the ability to develop applications which could take advantage of ubiquitous system database capabilities for storing and retrieving information.

As we know, no such thing was announced in the portions of the Stevenote that were made public. The closest public utterance to that prediction was the introduction of the system-wide address book, hooks for which would likely be built into the development APIs so that third-party applications could make use of the database.

Well, ThinkSecret has been doing an ongoing series of screen shots of new Jaguar capabilities, and if they are to be believed, it appears that the new version of OS X will indeed have some sort of ubiquitous database support built into it. Apple has made a big deal about adhering to standards in a big way - in fact that is prominent feature in the apple.com/switch stuff released today. So, rather than doing a proprietary dbKit/EOF thing again, it appears, if the screen shots are credible, that they will be providing similar capabilities under the ODBC rubric. ThinkSecret features several screen shots of an "ODBC Administrator" application:

The About tab which lists the code files being used by the app - similar to the Plug-Ins list OmniWeb shows in its preferences. There don't appear to be any controls on this, and I somehow doubt something like this would make it into a released application:

<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/odbcabout.html>


The Connection Pooling tab:

<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/odbcconnectionpooling.html>

The Drivers tab which would presumably be used to load the "adapters" for each particular database type:

<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/odbcdrivers.html>

The User Data Source information tab:

<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/odbcuserdsn.html>

The System Data Source tab:

<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/odbcsystemdsn.html>

And the Tracing tab, which facilitates logging ODBC requests & responses:

<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/odbctracing.html>

Also intriguing in the Think Secret collection of photos is this screen shot:

<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/serversettings.html>

... which shows a 'Server Settings' application. Presumably, this would imply the ability to publish data tables via the User or System Data Source method out to the world. However it looks a bit fishy - the adjacent icon next to the Server Setting application, presumably the one from which the above screen shots were taken is mis-spelt: "ODBC Adminisrator", and the Server Setting Info window identifies the Sever Setting application as a Classic App. (I thought Classic was dead as fsckin' fried chicken.)

So - it could be that ThinkSecret has been the victim of a hoax perpetrated by someone with a copy of Interface Builder and a poor spelling ability. Or it could be the beginning of something quite interesting. Especially if there is support for using ODBC data sources as sources Cocoa applications.

Some interesting questions:

+ Is the Address Book database announced in the Stevenote an example application built in Cocoa on these new system-wide databasing capabilities?

+ What database and drivers would Apple include with the system as the default back-end database? Is it likely they would use MySQL for this? Filemaker Pro?

Gibbons Burke

Jules, if you give this nimrod fifteen hundred bucks, I'm gonna
shoot 'em on general principle. [Vincent Vega, "Pulp Fiction"]

[Fred Terry]

These screen shots look remarkably like the ODBC Administrator that OpenLink
Software is currently shipping. Wonder if Apple licensed it?

pf

Post by Gibbons Burke
Well, ThinkSecret has been doing an ongoing series of screen shots of new
Jaguar capabilities, and if they are to be believed, it appears that the new
version of OS X will indeed have some sort of ubiquitous database support
built into it. Apple has made a big deal about adhering to standards in a big
way - in fact that is prominent feature in the apple.com/switch stuff released
today. So, rather than doing a proprietary dbKit/EOF thing again, it appears,
if the screen shots are credible, that they will be providing similar
capabilities under the ODBC rubric. ThinkSecret features several screen shots

[Gibbons Burke]

Interesting. Reading about it at the following web site it seems to make sense on a number of levels:

http://www.iodbc.org/

+ it is open source

+ it is not controlled by Microsoft (which seems to believe it owns ODBC)

+ the Mac OS X version of the iODBC SDK is the *only one* of all the 26 platforms listed not available for download on this page at either of the ftp sites listed:

<http://www.iodbc.org/opliodbc.htm>!

+ However - that could just be a broken link. If you go directly to the ftp source directory where the download files are, you can find the OS X SDK under the "m4" file name series instead of the "m3" names referenced in the download page links:

<ftp://www.openlinksw.com/open42/>

+ the SDK is covered by the GNU licence. I would think this would be a factor mitigating *against* Apple's use of the iODBC stuff in this form.

Curioser and curiouser!

Gibbons

Post by Fred Terry
These screen shots look remarkably like the ODBC Administrator that OpenLink
Software is currently shipping. Wonder if Apple licensed it?
pf

Post by Gibbons Burke
Well, ThinkSecret has been doing an ongoing series of screen shots of new
Jaguar capabilities, and if they are to be believed, it appears that the new
version of OS X will indeed have some sort of ubiquitous database support
built into it. Apple has made a big deal about adhering to standards in a big
way - in fact that is prominent feature in the apple.com/switch stuff released
today. So, rather than doing a proprietary dbKit/EOF thing again, it appears,
if the screen shots are credible, that they will be providing similar
capabilities under the ODBC rubric. ThinkSecret features several screen shots

_______________________________________________
MacOSX-talk mailing list
http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk

[Brice Ruth]

Since they already have Apache+PHP, I imagine they *would* go with MySQL,
not FM Pro - especially since one is free and the other is not ... by a long
shot.

Also, one is a full-on database server, the other is a data storage
application of sorts with aspirations (none fulfilled) to become more. Don't
even get me started on Lasso ..

Post by Gibbons Burke
In my pre-WWDC Scientific Wild-Assed Guess post to the list about what would be announced in the Stevenote, one of the things I suggested would be announced was a resurrection of EOF/dbKit capabilities in the system along with development tools which would give Cocoa developers the ability to develop applications which could take advantage of ubiquitous system database capabilities for storing and retrieving information.
As we know, no such thing was announced in the portions of the Stevenote that were made public. The closest public utterance to that prediction was the introduction of the system-wide address book, hooks for which would likely be built into the development APIs so that third-party applications could make use of the database.
<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/odbcabout.html>
<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/odbcconnectionpooling.html>
<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/odbcdrivers.html>
<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/odbcuserdsn.html>
<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/odbcsystemdsn.html>
<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/odbctracing.html>
<http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarmiscellaneous/images/serversettings.html>
... which shows a 'Server Settings' application. Presumably, this would imply the ability to publish data tables via the User or System Data Source method out to the world. However it looks a bit fishy - the adjacent icon next to the Server Setting application, presumably the one from which the above screen shots were taken is mis-spelt: "ODBC Adminisrator", and the Server Setting Info window identifies the Sever Setting application as a Classic App. (I thought Classic was dead as fsckin' fried chicken.)
So - it could be that ThinkSecret has been the victim of a hoax perpetrated by someone with a copy of Interface Builder and a poor spelling ability. Or it could be the beginning of something quite interesting. Especially if there is support for using ODBC data sources as sources Cocoa applications.
+ Is the Address Book database announced in the Stevenote an example application built in Cocoa on these new system-wide databasing capabilities?
+ What database and drivers would Apple include with the system as the default back-end database? Is it likely they would use MySQL for this? Filemaker Pro?
Gibbons Burke
Jules, if you give this nimrod fifteen hundred bucks, I'm gonna
shoot 'em on general principle. [Vincent Vega, "Pulp Fiction"]
_______________________________________________
MacOSX-talk mailing list
http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk

--
WebProjkt, Inc.
VP, Director of Internet Technology
http://www.webprojkt.com/

[Jesús Díaz Blanco]

Why ODBC? Why don't do JDBC, which is what everybody is doing now?

Methinks this is not real.

j.

[Chris Hanson]

Post by Jesús Díaz Blanco
Why ODBC? Why don't do JDBC, which is what everybody is doing now?

JDBC support is included with the Java runtime that ships with Mac OS
X and has been since Mac OS X 10.0.

Also, JDBC is just a Java equivalent of the archaic ODBC programming
interfaces.

-- Chris

[Brice Ruth]

Quite simple, really ... JDBC only works with Java apps (mostly), which
most apps aren't. Most specifically, Office v.X - I suppose you could do
some funky binding like Dreamweaver UltraDev did with RMIJDBC a while
back (maybe still?), but that was F-U-N-K-Y and I couldn't ever get
DW/UD to work to its promised potential, using it.

Also, for MySQL at least, I think the MyODBC implementation is a bit
further along than the JDBC driver for MySQL ... might be that way for
others too, who knows?

Lastly, if you have Java, you can do JDBC - i.e., you can do it now ...
this wouldn't be anything new, right? ODBC would be an added *feature* :)

Post by Jesús Díaz Blanco
Why ODBC? Why don't do JDBC, which is what everybody is doing now?
Methinks this is not real.
j.

[Michael Monner]

Post by Brice Ruth
Since they already have Apache+PHP, I imagine they *would* go with MySQL,
not FM Pro - especially since one is free and the other is not ... by a long
shot.
Also, one is a full-on database server, the other is a data storage
application of sorts with aspirations (none fulfilled) to become more. Don't
even get me started on Lasso ..

Ah, yes, but which is which. In my readings MySQL doesn't get much respect
as "real SQL".

[Shawn Erickson]

Post by Jesús Díaz Blanco
Why ODBC? Why don't do JDBC, which is what everybody is doing now?
Methinks this is not real.

JDBC is Java flavored ODBC. JDBC only makes sense if you are using Java,
ODBC is for the rest of us that use C/C++/Objective-C/etc.

Now I am not sure if this is real either... but not because things are
called ODBC.

-Shawn

[Brice Ruth]

What are you reading? MySQL supports the ANSI SQL92 standard almost in
its entirety ... something that other larger (read: more expensive)
systems don't even claim to do ... (this is from memory so don't flame
me if I'm a little off).

In uses from small db-driven websites to large enterprise classes DBs,
MySQL can not only deliver the features, the SQL compatibility, but also
the performance. The next few releases of MySQL will add triggers and
stored procedures (which we've all been waiting for patiently :)) as
well as database replication, clustering and that sort of thing.

Having used both Oracle and MySQL (the latter most extensively) I can
certainly vouch for the credibility of MySQL as "real SQL"

As for its usefulness to Apple - it also happens to be one of the most
feature-rich systems with the lightest resource demand. It scales
incredibly well, which Oracle can't say ... you can hardly run Oracle on
commodity hardware ... I installed 8i on a dual 450 PIII w/ IDE
(*choke*) drives (not ATA/100 either) and a simple select (no joins or
anything of that nature) on a table with less than 50 rows took upwards
of 5-10 seconds to process (with the drives grinding, grinding,
grinding) ... oh, and 256MB ram ... it was only supposed to be a test
server, for me to start learning Oracle DBA stuff, but *ouch* ... didn't
quite work out.

Don't get me wrong - Oracle scales UP quite well, I hear ... :) Possibly
higher than MySQL, but on the smaller end (useful for Apple), MySQL is
definitely the jewel (not that I'm saying Apple would even consider
Oracle on every OS X installation, mind you ... I'm just drawing
comparisons for those that aren't "in the know")

Brice

Post by Brice Ruth
Since they already have Apache+PHP, I imagine they *would* go with MySQL,
not FM Pro - especially since one is free and the other is not ... by a long
shot.
Also, one is a full-on database server, the other is a data storage
application of sorts with aspirations (none fulfilled) to become more. Don't
even get me started on Lasso ..

Yes but which is which. In my readings MySQL doesn't get much respect as
"real SQL".

[Eugene Lee]

On Mon, Jun 10, 2002 at 09:32:03PM -0500, Brice Ruth wrote:
:
: What are you reading? MySQL supports the ANSI SQL92 standard almost in
: its entirety ... something that other larger (read: more expensive)
: systems don't even claim to do ... (this is from memory so don't flame
: me if I'm a little off).

MySQL doesn't fully support certain kinds of JOINs, last I recall.
That might change in the 4.0 release whenever that happens.

[Joe Block]

Post by Brice Ruth
What are you reading? MySQL supports the ANSI SQL92 standard almost in
its entirety ... something that other larger (read: more expensive)
systems don't even claim to do ... (this is from memory so don't flame
me if I'm a little off).
In uses from small db-driven websites to large enterprise classes DBs,
MySQL can not only deliver the features, the SQL compatibility, but
also the performance. The next few releases of MySQL will add triggers
and stored procedures (which we've all been waiting for patiently :))
as well as database replication, clustering and that sort of thing.

PostgreSQL already does triggers and stored procedures. And
transactions. And it has a BSD license and builds on OS X.

I don't have enough db experience to have much opinion on the merits,
other than that transactions seem to make life a lot simpler.

jpb
--
Joe Block <***@ApesSeekingKnowledge.net>

If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)

[Brice Ruth]

PostgreSQL is definitely an A-rate SQL db ... no doubt about it. I myself am
not "up" on the key differences between MySQL and PostgreSQL and I use pgSQL
in certain cases (its JDBC driver, for instance, is a bit more developed, so
if I'm needing Java integration, I usually grab pgSQL).

Though, I believe that the support company for pgSQL folded not too long ago
- so if you're a corporation looking for "official" support (that you can
pay for), that may no longer be available. I could be wrong on that point,
though ... I don't follow the pgSQL world as closely as MySQL.

Incidentally, both integrate beautifully w/ Apache+PHP, as does Oracle and a
few other systems like DB2 and Sybase, if I recall. Of course, PHP also
hooks into ODBC/iODBC, so anything that has Openlink drivers (damn near
anything) will work w/ PHP, even Access, I imagine.

Post by Brice Ruth
What are you reading? MySQL supports the ANSI SQL92 standard almost in
its entirety ... something that other larger (read: more expensive)
systems don't even claim to do ... (this is from memory so don't flame me
if I'm a little off).
In uses from small db-driven websites to large enterprise classes DBs,
MySQL can not only deliver the features, the SQL compatibility, but also
the performance. The next few releases of MySQL will add triggers and
stored procedures (which we've all been waiting for patiently :)) as well
as database replication, clustering and that sort of thing.

PostgreSQL already does triggers and stored procedures. And transactions.
And it has a BSD license and builds on OS X.
I don't have enough db experience to have much opinion on the merits,
other than that transactions seem to make life a lot simpler.
jpb
--
If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)

--
WebProjkt, Inc.
VP, Director of Internet Technology
http://www.webprojkt.com/

[The Amazing Llama]

Funny, I was amazed at how it looks EXACTLY like the Datasources (ODBC) control panel on Windows. And I mean exactly, except for three things:
1) they lost the File DSN tab somewhere.
2) they made a few things into checkboxes that were yes/no radio buttons
3) they made it Aqua.
They even left in the "Custom Tracing DLL" in the Tracing tab.

This and the fact that the name is misspelled lead me to suspect that it's a fake. I'd love it if it weren't, because ODBC connectivity is great, but this looks like someone tossed it together with Interface Builder.

Post by Fred Terry
These screen shots look remarkably like the ODBC Administrator that OpenLink
Software is currently shipping. Wonder if Apple licensed it?
pf

Post by Gibbons Burke
Well, ThinkSecret has been doing an ongoing series of screen shots of new
Jaguar capabilities, and if they are to be believed, it appears that the new
version of OS X will indeed have some sort of ubiquitous database support
built into it. Apple has made a big deal about adhering to standards in a big
way - in fact that is prominent feature in the apple.com/switch stuff released
today. So, rather than doing a proprietary dbKit/EOF thing again, it appears,
if the screen shots are credible, that they will be providing similar
capabilities under the ODBC rubric. ThinkSecret features several screen shots

_______________________________________________
MacOSX-talk mailing list
http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk

-The Amazing Llama <tallama at mac dot com>
"Life is like an exploded clown. It's really funny until you figure out what just happened."

[Brice Ruth]

I, too, am highly suspicious.

Post by The Amazing Llama
Funny, I was amazed at how it looks EXACTLY like the Datasources (ODBC)
1) they lost the File DSN tab somewhere.
2) they made a few things into checkboxes that were yes/no radio buttons
3) they made it Aqua.
They even left in the "Custom Tracing DLL" in the Tracing tab.
This and the fact that the name is misspelled lead me to suspect that it's
a fake. I'd love it if it weren't, because ODBC connectivity is great, but
this looks like someone tossed it together with I

Post by Fred Terry
These screen shots look remarkably like the ODBC Administrator that OpenLink
Software is currently shipping. Wonder if Apple licensed it?
pf

Post by Gibbons Burke
Well, ThinkSecret has been doing an ongoing series of screen shots of new
Jaguar capabilities, and if they are to be believed, it appears that the new
version of OS X will indeed have some sort of ubiquitous database support
built into it. Apple has made a big deal about adhering to standards in a big
way - in fact that is prominent feature in the apple.com/switch stuff released
today. So, rather than doing a proprietary dbKit/EOF thing again, it appears,
if the screen shots are credible, that they will be providing similar
capabilities under the ODBC rubric. ThinkSecret features several screen shots

_______________________________________________
MacOSX-talk mailing list
http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk

-The Amazing Llama <tallama at mac dot com>
"Life is like an exploded clown. It's really funny until you figure out
what just happened."
_______________________________________________
MacOSX-talk mailing list
http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk

--
WebProjkt, Inc.
VP, Director of Internet Technology
http://www.webprojkt.com/

[The Amazing Llama]

What are you reading? MySQL supports the ANSI SQL92 standard almost in its entirety ... something that other larger (read: more expensive) systems don't even claim to do ... (this is from memory so don't flame me if I'm a little off).

Start by reading the feature list of any other SQL server out there. Then read MySQL's. Notice how that second read took a lot less time? True, they might not cover all of SQL92, but they cover the stuff people use, like triggers, procedures, referential integrity, and subselects.

In uses from small db-driven websites to large enterprise classes DBs, MySQL can not only deliver the features, the SQL compatibility, but also the performance. The next few releases of MySQL will add triggers and stored procedures (which we've all been waiting for patiently :)) as well as database replication, clustering and that sort of thing.

The problem with MySQL has been that everyone has been waiting patiently for triggers and stored procedures, because they are ALWAYS coming in the "next few releases". And subselects would be a wonderful, wonderful thing that MySQL doesn't even attempt. My bet is that that single feature will drag their statement parse times to the level that PostgreSQL et all are at now.

Having used both Oracle and MySQL (the latter most extensively) I can certainly vouch for the credibility of MySQL as "real SQL"

Did you use Oracle's PL/SQL, or their Server administration tools, or their application development environment, which are what makes Oracle the king? Did you try PostgreSQL, which does all those thing that you want MySQL to be able to do? Did you try SQLServer, which wraps all this in a GUI that (although it makes little sense) is a complete GUI?

As for its usefulness to Apple - it also happens to be one of the most feature-rich systems with the lightest resource demand. It scales incredibly well, which Oracle can't say ... you can hardly run Oracle on commodity hardware ... I installed 8i on a dual 450 PIII w/ IDE (*choke*) drives (not ATA/100 either) and a simple select (no joins or anything of that nature) on a table with less than 50 rows took upwards of 5-10 seconds to process (with the drives grinding, grinding, grinding) ... oh, and 256MB ram ... it was only supposed to be a test server, for me to start learning Oracle DBA stuff, but *ouch* ... didn't quite work out.
Don't get me wrong - Oracle scales UP quite well, I hear ... :) Possibly higher than MySQL, but on the smaller end (useful for Apple), MySQL is definitely the jewel (not that I'm saying Apple would even consider Oracle on every OS X installation, mind you ... I'm just drawing comparisons for those that aren't "in the know")

MySQL scales DOWN well, but once you have a few dozen hits at once you die. Do you read slashdot? Have you noticed how their log-in feature dies weekly? Thank MySQL and it's inability to scale up.

Oracle and the like run on high-end servers, and that's where they're meant to run. Put MySQL on high-end system and you get slashdot; fine most of the time, but you can't count on it. And that 99.999% uptime is the reason people pay Oracle the big bucks, and that's why Oracle is the second biggest software company in the world.

-The Amazing Llama <tallama at mac dot com>
"Life is like an exploded clown. It's really funny until you figure out what just happened."

[Brice Ruth]

I wouldn't call /. a failure of MySQL to scale "up" well - /. is an extreme
for MySQL and the cost of running Oracle for /. would be prohibitive ... I
have used Oracle, PL/SQL and the DBA tools - sometimes they work well,
sometimes they can be quite the pain. I've found, for instance, that
duplicating a DB in its entirety (structure + data) is 'simpler' in MySQL
than it is in Oracle (an quicker, too, at least in the instances I've come
across).

You have looked at the licensing cost for Oracle, right? The more you do
with it, the more it costs. Go check out the stats that /. has for the
machines running its DBs - now go to Oracle's site and figure out how much
that would cost ... quite a bit, actually.

I've already commented that pgSQL is also a good DB - I like it myself, I
just don't use it all the time because for my uses, MySQL does fine. Since
its BSD-style licensed, however, and not GPL'd like MySQL, I imagine it'd be
a better choice for Apple to integrate as the "ubiquitous database" that
this thread is talking about.

As for MySQL's lack of "features" - I agree, subselects, triggers and stored
procedures would be absolutely wonderful - I've been able to live w/o them,
but I certainly wouldn't mind having them. I *do* believe that the next few
releases of MySQL will be telling - I believe that MySQL AB has reached the
critical mass it needed to push these *significant* features into the
system.

p.s. I have noticed that /.'s login feature doesn't work all the time, but
it isn't as often as you put it - I check /. religiously, at least 8-20
times a day and I encounter that situation less and less lately ...
considering /. is handling more hits than any other site *not* using
Oracle/DB2/Sybase (let's not even go to SQL Server, eh?) - I'd say they're
sittin' pretty :)

Post by The Amazing Llama

Post by Brice Ruth
What are you reading? MySQL supports the ANSI SQL92 standard almost in
its entirety ... something that other larger (read: more expensive)
systems don't even claim to do ... (this is from memory so d

Start by reading the feature list of any other SQL server out there. Then
read MySQL's. Notice how that second read took a lot less time? True, they
might not cover all of SQL92, but they cover the s

Post by Brice Ruth
In uses from small db-driven websites to large enterprise classes DBs,
MySQL can not only deliver the features, the SQL compatibility, but also
the performance. The next few releases of MySQL will ad

The problem with MySQL has been that everyone has been waiting patiently
for triggers and stored procedures, because they are ALWAYS coming in the
"next few releases". And subselects would be a wonde

Post by Brice Ruth
Having used both Oracle and MySQL (the latter most extensively) I can
certainly vouch for the credibility of MySQL as "real SQL"

Did you use Oracle's PL/SQL, or their Server administration tools, or
their application development environment, which are what makes Oracle the
king? Did you try PostgreSQL, which does all those thi

Post by Brice Ruth
As for its usefulness to Apple - it also happens to be one of the most
feature-rich systems with the lightest resource demand. It scales
incredibly well, which Oracle can't say ... you can hardly run
Don't get me wrong - Oracle scales UP quite well, I hear ... :) Possibly
higher than MySQL, but on the smaller end (useful for Apple), MySQL is
definitely the jewel (not that I'm saying Apple would e

MySQL scales DOWN well, but once you have a few dozen hits at once you
die. Do you read slashdot? Have you noticed how their log-in feature dies
weekly? Thank MySQL and it's inability to scale up.
Oracle and the like run on high-end servers, and that's where they're
meant to run. Put MySQL on high-end system and you get slashdot; fine most
of the time, but you can't count on it. And that 99.99
-The Amazing Llama <tallama at mac dot com>
"Life is like an exploded clown. It's really funny until you figure out
what just happened."

--
WebProjkt, Inc.
VP, Director of Internet Technology
http://www.webprojkt.com/

[Ian Ragsdale]

Post by Joe Block
PostgreSQL already does triggers and stored procedures. And
transactions. And it has a BSD license and builds on OS X.

I'm sure there are plenty of reasons to like PostgreSQL better than MySQL,
but transactions aren't one of them. MySQL handles transactions just fine
if you use the InnoDB or BDB table types, and has for quite some time.

Post by Joe Block
I don't have enough db experience to have much opinion on the merits,
other than that transactions seem to make life a lot simpler.

Sure, there are plenty of times when transactions are useful, but there are
also plenty of situations where you don't need them.

I'm definitely not here to claim that MySQL is the be all and end all of
databases, but it is definitely dead simple, low overhead, plenty fast, and
plenty reliable for a large number of situations. That's a pretty nice
combination.

Ian

[Xah Lee]

Dear Brice Ruth,

Post by Brice Ruth
What are you reading? MySQL supports the ANSI SQL92 standard almost in
its entirety ... something that other larger (read: more expensive)
systems don't even claim to do ... (this is from memory so don't flame
me if I'm a little off).

apparently, methinks that you've been brainwashed by unix a bit. Let me
take a random guess: you've been using unix for quite a while, haven't
you?

MySQL, along with unix, c, shell, perl, php, apache, cvs... are the
unspeakably hideous "thing" that claims itself being a good technology
whereas in fact they are the most condensed piss possible.

The debate of MySQL runs in every unix discussion group, and basically
there is no way to convince those who has already been brain-washed by
unix the hideousness of MySQL. For those serious, please read:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/usoft.html#mysql
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/complang.html#sql

Perhaps MySQL is a dorky database that can be rather suitable for those
who don't need real database features but rather just want to store
smalltime data piecemeal instead of using files. But No! My position on
MySQL is that it is a crime. Those who abide by it are criminals of the
computing society. These are the people who harbor the thought that it
is all right for software to crash or malfunction, that software is too
complex and is all right to have bugs. These are the people why today's
software are hated by their users.

The author of MySQL, Monty Widenius, along with Larry Wall, Linus
Torvald and friends, are assholes of inordinate measure. On the surface,
they are these happy-go-lucky jovial and kind types who contribute to
society, whereas in fact they are sloven _liars_ who peddle their
_brainless hack_ and self esteem to get themselves ahead, ruthless about
the harm they do to the computing community. These are the crackpots in
the computing world. Ask me and i'll show you my past essays on this
matter.

Xah
***@xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html


On Monday, June 10, 2002, at 07:32 PM, Brice Ruth wrote: ...

[Brice Ruth]

Xah,

You're an asshole of an unspeakable degree. Your moronic uninformed and
insulting opinions aren't welcome here or anywhere else. Crawl back to your
hole and stick your head in your ass where it belongs.

-Brice

Post by Xah Lee
Dear Brice Ruth,

Post by Brice Ruth
What are you reading? MySQL supports the ANSI SQL92 standard almost in
its entirety ... something that other larger (read: more expensive)
systems don't even claim to do ... (this is from memory so don't flame me
if I'm a little off).

apparently, methinks that you've been brainwashed by unix a bit. Let me
take a random guess: you've been using unix for quite a while, haven't
you?
MySQL, along with unix, c, shell, perl, php, apache, cvs... are the
unspeakably hideous "thing" that claims itself being a good technology
whereas in fact they are the most condensed piss possible.
The debate of MySQL runs in every unix discussion group, and basically
there is no way to convince those who has already been brain-washed by
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/usoft.html#mysql
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/complang.html#sql
Perhaps MySQL is a dorky database that can be rather suitable for those
who don't need real database features but rather just want to store
smalltime data piecemeal instead of using files. But No! My position on
MySQL is that it is a crime. Those who abide by it are criminals of the
computing society. These are the people who harbor the thought that it is
all right for software to crash or malfunction, that software is too
complex and is all right to have bugs. These are the people why today's
software are hated by their users.
The author of MySQL, Monty Widenius, along with Larry Wall, Linus Torvald
and friends, are assholes of inordinate measure. On the surface, they are
these happy-go-lucky jovial and kind types who contribute to society,
whereas in fact they are sloven _liars_ who peddle their _brainless hack_
and self esteem to get themselves ahead, ruthless about the harm they do
to the computing community. These are the crackpots in the computing
world. Ask me and i'll show you my past essays on this matter.
Xah
http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html
On Monday, June 10, 2002, at 07:32 PM, Brice Ruth wrote: ...

--
WebProjkt, Inc.
VP, Director of Internet Technology
http://www.webprojkt.com/

[Richard]

Post by Brice Ruth
Xah,
You're an asshole of an unspeakable degree. Your moronic uninformed and
insulting opinions aren't welcome here or anywhere else. Crawl back to your
hole and stick your head in your ass where it belongs.
-Brice

NOOOOOOOOO!!!

If you can't stand Xah's opinions just ignore him.
I am sick of long chains of Xah bashing messages.
One message from Xah ends up being 20 messages
all of which make the respondent look worse than
Xah himself.

I am on this list for MacOSX not for the antiXah fan
club.

[Stefano Mori]

Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 06:48:36 -0700

Xah, are you trying to annoy people?

[David Cake]

Post by Xah Lee
Ask me and i'll show you my past essays on this matter.
Xah

If anyone asks, I'll be so cross.
Cheers
David

[Chris Devers]

Post by Xah Lee
The debate of MySQL runs in every unix discussion group, and basically
there is no way to convince those who has already been brain-washed by
unix the hideousness of MySQL.

Actually, speaking as one of your many hated brainwashed Unix fans, I
don't much care for MySQL either. It's easy & fast, but then so was BeOS
and so are some of the more unkknown web servers out there. The problem
with all of these is that it's one thing to be fast & easy, but quite
another to be complete & correct. Some of those web servers can't do
anything but static content, and they fail badly on simple 404 errors;
BeOS had no legacy applications to support so they could afford to cut
corners; and MySQL has (I think even up until now, not counting
extensions such as InnoDB) consistently failed to meet ACID compliance
tests that really make it robust enough to count as a true transactional
database management system.

So, in short, I don't disagree -- MySQL ain't perfect. Not yet anyway.



But I seem to have missed the part where you suggested something better.


For a lot of uses -- such as nearly all web sites, where 99% of the
database queries are SELECTs, MySQL is a perfectly acceptable tool. Such
users can live without the protections that "real" databases provide.
But for users that do need them, what do you propose? Don't give me this
"Monty Widenius / Larry Wall / Linus Torvalds are fools" shit, Xah. Put
up or shut up. If you have something so overwhelmingly better, put it
forward. Otherwise just go away.



Not that you'd ever just go away...

--
Chris Devers

[Gibbons Burke]

[...]
For a lot of uses -- such as nearly all web sites, where 99% of the database queries are SELECTs, MySQL is a perfectly acceptable tool. Such users can live without the protections that "real" databases provide...

I manage a web site using a home-grown Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP content management system and it has been rock-solid reliable over the last two years. We are a subscription site so we don't have heavy traffic demands, and we are serving up relatively static content. However, It Just Works and that makes my main job as the content editor relatively stress free. The only down-time we've experienced occurred when log files filled up the drive, or when the Uninterruptible Power Supply had a mid-life identity crisis and decided to shut down power to the machines.

Apple has taken the first two items in that list (*NIX & Apache) and put user interfaces on them that make them accessible and useful to the masses. If they could do the same thing with MySQL and PHP - bringing them into the fold with simple administrative interfaces... the mind boggles.

Of course, this could compete at the low end with WebObjects, but I'm thinking that this D.A.M.P. (Darwin/Apache/MySQL/PHP) combo might be to WebObjects as iMovie is to Final Cut Pro. Making it as easy to use as iMovie would certainly be a challenge. However, just having canonical, licensed versions of MySQL and PHP maintained and updated in OS X would be a really nice thing. Even nicer would be an "iPublish" application for the masses that could provide standard templates for web applications tying all this technology together.

Even better yet would be the benefits to ObjC Cocoa developers if a built-in database infrastructure were tied into the standard class frameworks available to Cocoa developers. If you think MySQL is not up to par as a database, I shudder to imagine what you must think of object archiving to flat files for this task. Because the need to store data is nearly universal for application developers, Apple would, I think, be best served if they could set the standard by providing an abstract object based interface in the ObjC Cocoa API to external database sources. If developers could count on such a database being part and parcel to the system, they would be encouraged to develop applications that took advantage of that standard infrastructure to store data instead of the file system.

MySQL would seem to be be a reasonably good choice as the default technology distributed with OS X because it is widely used, fast, well understood for what it is, what it can and can't do, and it, presumably, could be licensed relatively inexpensively.

--
Gibbons Burke
Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed,
to be simple is to be great. [R. W. Emerson, Literary Ethics]

[Brice Ruth]

Excellent post. I'm only somewhat dubious about the appropriateness (word?)
of MySQL for storing objects ... there are a few OO databases out there that
actually work relatively well, from my limited uses of them, that might be a
tighter fit than MySQL. I could be wrong, though ... :)

I personally use OOP in the Apache/MySQL/PHP systems I develop for my
company's clients and the objects are 'self-aware' and know how to save
themselves into the database backend and read themselves out again. I
suppose it would be similar w/ an ObjC tie-in, but then again, maybe not. I
only store the object's properties into the DB, which may not be ideal for
the type of use proposed here.

Dunno. Good post, though.

Brice

Post by Gibbons Burke

[...]
For a lot of uses -- such as nearly all web sites, where 99% of the database queries are SELECTs, MySQL is a perfectly acceptable tool. Such users can live without the protections that "real" databases provide...

I manage a web site using a home-grown Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP content management system and it has been rock-solid reliable over the last two years. We are a subscription site so we don't have heavy traffic demands, and we are serving up relatively static content. However, It Just Works and that makes my main job as the content editor relatively stress free. The only down-time we've experienced occurred when log files filled up the drive, or when the Uninterruptible Power Supply had a mid-life identity crisis and decided to shut down power to the machines.
Apple has taken the first two items in that list (*NIX & Apache) and put user interfaces on them that make them accessible and useful to the masses. If they could do the same thing with MySQL and PHP - bringing them into the fold with simple administrative interfaces... the mind boggles.
Of course, this could compete at the low end with WebObjects, but I'm thinking that this D.A.M.P. (Darwin/Apache/MySQL/PHP) combo might be to WebObjects as iMovie is to Final Cut Pro. Making it as easy to use as iMovie would certainly be a challenge. However, just having canonical, licensed versions of MySQL and PHP maintained and updated in OS X would be a really nice thing. Even nicer would be an "iPublish" application for the masses that could provide standard templates for web applications tying all this technology together.
Even better yet would be the benefits to ObjC Cocoa developers if a built-in database infrastructure were tied into the standard class frameworks available to Cocoa developers. If you think MySQL is not up to par as a database, I shudder to imagine what you must think of object archiving to flat files for this task. Because the need to store data is nearly universal for application developers, Apple would, I think, be best served if they could set the standard by providing an abstract object based interface in the ObjC Cocoa API to external database sources. If developers could count on such a database being part and parcel to the system, they would be encouraged to develop applications that took advantage of that standard infrastructure to store data instead of the file system.
MySQL would seem to be be a reasonably good choice as the default technology distributed with OS X because it is widely used, fast, well understood for what it is, what it can and can't do, and it, presumably, could be licensed relatively inexpensively.
--
Gibbons Burke
Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed,
to be simple is to be great. [R. W. Emerson, Literary Ethics]
_______________________________________________
MacOSX-talk mailing list
http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk

--
WebProjkt, Inc.
VP, Director of Internet Technology
http://www.webprojkt.com/

[Alex Fuller]

Can I suggest that in future no one responds to messages posted by Xah? In
true MacOSX-talk playground style, perhaps if we ignore him he will go away.

At the very least, the traffic resulting from his posts will be limited to
one pointless message to skip at a time, and threads won't become hijacked
so easily.

Alex

Post by Brice Ruth
Xah,
You're an asshole of an unspeakable degree. Your moronic uninformed and
insulting opinions aren't welcome here or anywhere else. Crawl back to your
hole and stick your head in your ass where it belongs.
-Brice

Post by Xah Lee
Dear Brice Ruth,

Post by Brice Ruth
What are you reading? MySQL supports the ANSI SQL92 standard almost in
its entirety ... something that other larger (read: more expensive)
systems don't even claim to do ... (this is from memory so don't flame me
if I'm a little off).

apparently, methinks that you've been brainwashed by unix a bit. Let me
take a random guess: you've been using unix for quite a while, haven't
you?
MySQL, along with unix, c, shell, perl, php, apache, cvs... are the
unspeakably hideous "thing" that claims itself being a good technology
whereas in fact they are the most condensed piss possible.
The debate of MySQL runs in every unix discussion group, and basically
there is no way to convince those who has already been brain-washed by
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/usoft.html#mysql
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/complang.html#sql
Perhaps MySQL is a dorky database that can be rather suitable for those
who don't need real database features but rather just want to store
smalltime data piecemeal instead of using files. But No! My position on
MySQL is that it is a crime. Those who abide by it are criminals of the
computing society. These are the people who harbor the thought that it is
all right for software to crash or malfunction, that software is too
complex and is all right to have bugs. These are the people why today's
software are hated by their users.
The author of MySQL, Monty Widenius, along with Larry Wall, Linus Torvald
and friends, are assholes of inordinate measure. On the surface, they are
these happy-go-lucky jovial and kind types who contribute to society,
whereas in fact they are sloven _liars_ who peddle their _brainless hack_
and self esteem to get themselves ahead, ruthless about the harm they do
to the computing community. These are the crackpots in the computing
world. Ask me and i'll show you my past essays on this matter.
Xah
http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html
On Monday, June 10, 2002, at 07:32 PM, Brice Ruth wrote: ...

--
WebProjkt, Inc.
VP, Director of Internet Technology
http://www.webprojkt.com/
_______________________________________________
MacOSX-talk mailing list
http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk

[Joe Block]

Post by Xah Lee
The author of MySQL, Monty Widenius, along with Larry Wall, Linus
Torvald and friends, are assholes of inordinate measure. On the
surface, they are these happy-go-lucky jovial and kind types who
contribute to society, whereas in fact they are sloven _liars_ who
peddle their _brainless hack_ and self esteem to get themselves ahead,
ruthless about the harm they do to the computing community. These are
the crackpots in the computing world. Ask me and i'll show you my past
essays on this matter.

It's interesting that you call these people brainless, when they've
written tools that most people consider part of a well equipped server
toolkit. What have you written that has tens of thousands of
installations depending on it? Do people write books about anything
you've done?

Quit wasting oxygen.

jpb
--
Joe Block <***@ApesSeekingKnowledge.net>

Diplomacy - the art of letting someone else have your way.

[mmalcolm crawford]

I'm only somewhat dubious about the appropriateness (word?) of MySQL
for storing objects ...

Object-relational mapping is well-known and well-understood -- by
NeXT/Apple anyway. If you consider that an Entity is represented by a
Class in your application, and a Table in the database, then in your
Class, Attributes are instance variables, whereas in the database
they're Columns.

I personally use OOP in the Apache/MySQL/PHP systems I develop for my
company's clients and the objects are 'self-aware' and know how to save
themselves into the database backend and read themselves out again.

Apple already has technology to do this in a database-independent
fashion...

I suppose it would be similar w/ an ObjC tie-in, but then again, maybe
not. I only store the object's properties into the DB, which may not be
ideal for the type of use proposed here.

... which currently works extremely well with Java. We'll have to wait
to see what lifeline is thrown to the Objective-C implementation.

With my corporate association I can clearly be accused of bias, but I
would personally not like to see Apple tie themselves to any particular
database. I think the strategy of providing a good abstraction layer
that can be used in conjunction with any "substrate", whether relational
database, flat filesystem, LDAP, or whatever, would be of significantly
greater overall benefit.

mmalc

[Jesús Díaz Blanco]

Exactamente! No need to justify anything. It just _makes_ sense to do
keep everything in layers and independent.

Now the question is if they are going to put EOF available to any app or
not.

j.

Post by mmalcolm crawford
With my corporate association I can clearly be accused of bias, but I
would personally not like to see Apple tie themselves to any particular
database. I think the strategy of providing a good abstraction layer
that can be used in conjunction with any "substrate", whether
relational database, flat filesystem, LDAP, or whatever, would be of
significantly greater overall benefit.

[Fred Terry]

Post by Xah Lee
Perhaps MySQL is a dorky database that can be rather suitable for those
who don't need real database features but rather just want to store
smalltime data piecemeal instead of using files. But No! My position on
MySQL is that it is a crime. Those who abide by it are criminals of the
computing society. These are the people who harbor the thought that it
is all right for software to crash or malfunction, that software is too
complex and is all right to have bugs. These are the people why today's
software are hated by their users.

Damn, Xah, everything's a crime with you. Lighten up.

Post by Xah Lee
The author of MySQL, Monty Widenius, along with Larry Wall, Linus
Torvald and friends, are assholes of inordinate measure. On the surface,
they are these happy-go-lucky jovial and kind types who contribute to
society, whereas in fact they are sloven _liars_ who peddle their
_brainless hack_ and self esteem to get themselves ahead, ruthless about
the harm they do to the computing community. These are the crackpots in
the computing world. Ask me and i'll show you my past essays on this
matter.

Have you met these gentlemen? They really aren't assholes and brighter
lights consider them to be saving the computer industry. I'm inclined to
agree.

pf

[Jesús Díaz Blanco]

Post by Fred Terry

Post by Xah Lee
These are the crackpots in
the computing world. Ask me and i'll show you my past essays on this
matter.

Have you met these gentlemen? They really aren't assholes and brighter
lights consider them to be saving the computer industry. I'm inclined to
agree.

Xah is a troll of the worst kind: he doesn't even know it. Christ, the
guy even writes essays for himself! And then he re-reads himself!
Remembers me of the wacko from Seven.

His hero is Stallman, so go figure.

j.

[Matt]

Post by Jesús Díaz Blanco
His hero is Stallman, so go figure.

I've nothing against RMS but Xah seems to miss the entire point of the
G.N.U. project.

GNU means, GNU's Not Unix...referring to the UNIX trademark and not the
actual UNIX-like nature of the system. Stallman is the architect and
visionary of the very UNIX-type stuff that Xah claims to despise.

Hating UNIX (as a system and command structure) and yet holding GNU and
Stallman in high regard is an oxymoron.

I think Xah may need to re-evaluate his heroes.

M

[Jared ''Danger'' Earle]

Post by Jesús Díaz Blanco
Xah is a troll of the worst kind: he doesn't even know it. Christ, the
guy even writes essays for himself! And then he re-reads himself!
Remembers me of the wacko from Seven.

Please read my .sig below.

--
Jared Earle, Nightfall Games, ***@23x.net - http://www.23x.net
"Just because the SPORK's got a library card doesn't make him Yoda."

[LuKreme]

Post by Jesús Díaz Blanco
His hero is Stallman, so go figure.

I've nothing against RMS but Xah seems to miss the entire point of the G.
N.U. project.
GNU means, GNU's Not Unix...referring to the UNIX trademark and not the
actual UNIX-like nature of the system. Stallman is the architect and
visionary of the very UNIX-type stuff that Xah claims to despise.
Hating UNIX (as a system and command structure) and yet holding GNU and
Stallman in high regard is an oxymoron.
I think Xah may need to re-evaluate his heroes.

He's either bipolar, or simply too stupid to understad his own stupidity.
Like Kevin Kline in A FISH CALLED WANDA.

Xah Gorillas do not read Philosophy!

MACOSX-Talk Yes they do, Xah, they just don't understand it.


(guess what my most recent DVD purchase was?)

next: Say Anything

[Xah Lee]

Hi Fred,

Post by Fred Terry
Have you met these gentlemen? They really aren't assholes and brighter
lights consider them to be saving the computer industry. I'm inclined to
agree.

Yes i have met some gentle bigwigs of unix community.

I met Larry Wall in LinuxWorld Expo 1998(1999?) in San Jose, California,
and personally asked him to autograph an O'Reilly book i was carrying.
See here:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/perlr.html

I have also met Richard Stallman in the same conference. I asked him to
sign the book. He looked at the book, saw evil, kindly refused to sign,
and some freedom apostles behind him started to explain to me
unnecessarily about how FreeSoftware requires Free Manuals and how i can
purchase a copy of some GNU manual across the hall that Stallman would
not object to sign.

from this we can see two fairly opposite survival strategies. Wall is
this happy-go-lucky phony type of fellow, would take things easy, smile
a lot, make friends, have a beer, and all the while cook up devious lies
to suck up clueless youngsters and advance his fame. Stallman on the
other hand, takes the sainty approach , sticking to a principle of his
own and never back down. This strategy makes enemies quick, but tends to
win followers who are strong and royal.

of course, since Stallman's complaint on particular O'Reilly and his
diligence, these days we have quite a few books from commercial
publisher such as O'Reilly, that publishes under an OpenSource scheme as
per his "FreeSoftware requires Free Manual" gospel:
e.g.
Perl, Bradley M. Kuhn
http://www.ebb.org/PickingUpPerl/

CVS, Karl Fogel
http://cvsbook.red-bean.com/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1576104907/xahhome-20/

O'reilly's OpenBooks list
http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/

for Richard Stallman's philosophy on "FreeSoftware needs FreeManuals",
see
http://www.gnu.org/doc/doc.html

--
(btw, once i saw a photo on the web where underneath Larry's "there's
more than one way to do it" autograph, Guido van Rossum of Python fame
signed "you bet!". I didn't bookmark the url. Does anyone know where? I
also recall once seeing a photo of some i think Perl monger's conference
in CA which shows a guy who have a big Perl camel tattooed to his arm.
I'd like to save that photo too.)

Xah
***@xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html


On Tuesday, June 11, 2002, at 10:49 AM, Fred Terry wrote:

[Stefan M. van den Oord (MasterObjects)]

Post by David Cake

Post by Xah Lee
Ask me and i'll show you my past essays on this matter.
Xah

If anyone asks, I'll be so cross.

You know, I don't get it. I really don't.

If you hate him so much, and if you all think he only writes crap, then why
do you keep responding to his messages? Can't you just ignore them? (I mean
really ignore them; don't tell us you ignore them, because then we'll know
you're not ignoring them.)

The only possible explanation I can come up with is that, subconsciously,
you must feel that he does have a point. Otherwise it wouldn't offend you,
right? You'd just shrug and go on.

I've been trying to avoid this, but I can no longer deny it: I am much more
tired because of all the negative posts on this list than I could ever be
because of the posts of one or two subscribers.

Could somebody please explain to me why this is happening?

Stefan

P.S. The above quotation was just an example; it's not about this
one in particular.
--
Stefan M. van den Oord

MasterObjects
Reigerskamp 393
3607 HX Maarssen
The Netherlands

Phone [phone]
Fax [phone]
http://www.masterobjects.com
***@masterobjects.com

[Jesús Díaz Blanco]

Post by Stefan M. van den Oord (MasterObjects)
Could somebody please explain to me why this is happening?

Some people follow the World Cup. Some others follow tennis. Others go
for bikes.

Xah... Xah is our unofficial list sport. ;-)

j.

[LuKreme]

On Wednesday, June 12, 2002, at 12:58 , Stefan M. van den Oord

Post by Stefan M. van den Oord (MasterObjects)
Could somebody please explain to me why this is happening?

Because people are inherently lazy and putting "If from: Xah --> Trash"
takes time.

[Dan Crevier]

Post by LuKreme
On Wednesday, June 12, 2002, at 12:58 , Stefan M. van den Oord

Post by Stefan M. van den Oord (MasterObjects)
Could somebody please explain to me why this is happening?

Because people are inherently lazy and putting "If from: Xah --> Trash"
takes time.

If you are using Entourage and already have a rule to trash junk, you can
just put someone in the junk mail category :-)

Dan