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jd wrote The problem-spaces solved by these databases are all very very different. I would love to see a database that had pluggable components such that different components were optimized for different types of workload and that different functions could be loaded/unloaded as needed

Vendors such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Sybase have taken a somewhat different approach to adapting their servers to the workload and the jobs at hand.

First, let's distinguish between software and the database it manages. The former is a database management system (DBMS) that isn't a single, monolithic program. If you install and run DB2, Oracle, Sybase, or Microsoft SQL Server, you'll see there is a division of labor. There isn't a single process, service or thread doing all of the work. There's are typically different daemons / services running for managing connections, for OLAP processing, for replication, etc. If you don't need a service, such as OLAP or replication, you don't start it.

You mentioned wanting to "see a database that had pluggable components". The industry has been there and done that -- for almost ten years. Using object-relational SQL products, we can install plug-ins in databases. It's the same concept as a browser plug-in.

Starting in the '90s, IBM, Informix, Oracle and Sybase released SQL servers that provide this capability. Besides containing tables and views, the database can contain stored procedures, triggers and Java classes. The DBMS invokes the embedded Java classes when executing SQL queries or stored procedures.

A Google search on "Java in the database" and "logic in the database" turned up these links:

"Java DB Synergy" http://www.firstsql.com/javadbsynergy.shtml/
"Logic in the Database" http://www.sqlsummit.com/articles/LogicInTheDataba se.HTM
"Using Java in the Database" http://www.ianywhere.com/developer/product_manuals /sqlanywhere/0902/en/html/dbpgen9/00000063.htm/

I'm an Oracle DBA, and I've written stored procedures in Java.

There are a few benefits - as I'm also a Java developer, it's nice to work with one language.

But you have to create PL/SQL stubs, and you can't write triggers in Java, and the JVM is big and takes up alot of space (memory), and it's hardwired into the Oracle database so can't be upgraded, and it can take 2-3 seconds to initialize if it hasn't been called, and...

Lots of bad things; cool idea; better to use FirstSQL, a database written in Java that gives you both RDBMS and OODMS (I'm not affiliated in any way with the company)..

> Well, when 7 dead astronauts are traced to SQL flaws, then perhaps the "real relational" model will finally get the attention that it allegedly deserves.

You should read the authors you criticize before being ironic about them anyway, my example was purposefully overshooted to try to bring your attention to the fact that theory is practical, and there is more than one book about that, but you seem to have also purposefully missed the point.

> What you need to sell it is catchy buzzwords and toy examples and techno-cliches that inject half-baked ideas (or even those that happen to be full-baked) to PHB's.

Here I agree with you. But all this can come just after an implementation of the relational model gains some acceptance. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem which was broken for the basic relational ideas by IBM Future System’s System R prototype which eventually became SQL/DS. BS12 could have been it for the full relational compliance, but perhaps now it’s too late for it, even with IBM newfound open source friendliness. But Alphora Dataphor could be it, too bad slashdotters don’t want to hear about it. There were at least two rejected submissions about it.

> I agree that NULL stinks overall. It's few benefits are not with the myriad frustrations it causes.

You get the point relating to NULLs. You can say about the same about duplicates, inconsistent language design, lack of closure, arbitrary restrictions, broken types and domains system, mistaken object support (the relvar == class blunder), and the list goes ever on that’s why it’s way better to ditch SQL and start all over again, and that’s why we need The Third Manifesto.

Historically the US companies get the last say on standards and product acceptance. IBM UK had the far superior BS12 relational system, but IBM US got the substandard SQL accepted instead; Symbian from Europe has had the Psion in widespread use much before Palm's success in the US, but Psion has been cancelled in the end-user market (only cell phones now) and even them Microsoft is pushing WinCE and will probably succeed in the long run if GNU/Linux don't get there first.

Even if components are manufactured in the Far East, it is big integrators like Acer, Toshiba and the like, specially the US ones IBM, Dell, HP, Compaq, that get to set standards set by US monopolists Microsoft and Intel. And US law is also the standard for international law and treaties, as well as the template for other countries -- witness DMCA, copyright extensions and the like.

As for the Be case, I mentioned it because it shows how much power US companies have to shut down competitors' access to entire market segments. It is an example from the much more closed Apple market space, but the PC market is becoming more and more like that.

I was wondering about exactly this a little while ago when I came across this very interesting site called Database Debunking by Fabian Pascal. Very interesting to see such a "contrarian" view. He's the guy who wrote Practical Issues In Database Management.

There is lots said on this over at Database Debunkings

try Database Debunkings for some views of the limitations of SQL.

Database Debunking has some great arguments against OODBMSs. Basically, it comes down to: data independence, no single rational object model, and the strong mathematical (set theory) foundation of the RDBMS.

Object theory is still too... undefined.

To have big fundings from the private sector is not necessarily a good idea. For one, CS courses are too "practical", that is, oriented to products, not to the fundamentals of the field. There are many courses in Universities that simply do not belong there, but are in the U. because of corporate funding.

I suggest reading Skyscrapers with Shack Foundations, by Fabian Pascal, and Edsger Dijkstra's Convocation Speech at Univ of Texas at Austin.

"We are designing a business-to-business application with shoppingcarts, orders, ordelines and other stuff with servlets and JSP.
The java part is clear. But the database... Pff, we are programmers not databasedesigners [sic]. Can anybody give us some help?" --from the Database Debunking site