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MSSQL 2005 Finally Released
mnovotny writes "Computerworld reports that Microsoft is finally set to release their belated SQL Server 2005. From the article: 'Despite a two-year delay, several users who have tested the software cited the improved performance and new functionality it brings as positive developments that likely will convince them to upgrade soon.' The free version can be downloaded directly from Microsoft."
Before the Anti-Microsoft redirect gets out. Please take into accounts. Most People who choose MS SQL Server already have a windows network, Oracle is to expensive for their needs, MySQL 5 just was released with most of the functionality that was in MS SQL 2000, Not many good tools for PostGreSQL, Easier to integrate with .NET, and gives PHB the warm and fuzzies. I have been working with MS SQL 2000 and I must say I was surprising pleased with it, other then the POS that is called DTS, I never had any problems with SQL server, with it crashing or problems handling a lot of data, or configuring security. My only Fear with MS SQL 2005 is that it will break so much compatibility that we well need to redo a lot of stored procedures and all our working around for DTS.
MS SQL Server Yes it is closed sources, I don't know what type of security holes they will find in it, It is defiantly bloated because it will not fit 5 1/2 single density floppy disk with enough rooms for a 2000 record table. If you already have MS SQL 2000 and in a year or so you need to upgrade it will probably be easer to go to 2005 them migrating to the others.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The limited stored proc language that SQL server had before was actually a good thing; you could do some limited stuff in the DB. Thus, you weren't often able to give in to the tendency to stick application logic in the database tier.
And this quote pretty much says it all: Raichura said the support for Microsoft's Common Language Runtime technology via Visual Studio will let him avoid having to go to multiple developers with different specialties. "I can natively write stored procedures straight into software," he said. "This increases my resource pool because it reduces the distinction between software developers and architects."
Read: Now, I can pay people less to create a complete fucking pigsty that will perform well enough that the app will appear largely stable.
Free? Only if you buy their other products.
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Clearly, this (as well as news of Oracle's "free/lite" version of 10g), are good news... that Open Source projects like MySQL, PHP, PostgreSQL, etc are forcing the "cathedral" software shops to re-examine their ways, since they (Microsoft & others) can't rely on piracy anymore (due to impacted profits) to keep the "pipeline full" and "mindshare". It's good for the closed source developers, and ultimately it will be good for OSS developers, as OSS entries in these fields mature. Competition is good, and the developers benefit.
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And paint them even further into a corner such that migration to another DB is next to impossible.
The only time I really get annoyed with the limits of standard SQL stored procedures is when I need an array of values to be passed into it. For instance, there are many times where a stored procedure that uses an "IN" statement could really benefit from passing in an array of values for the "IN". To get around this, you basically have to write a data access layer that creates SQL on the fly.
I'm all about separating "logic" from the data access layer, but simple things like that are probably possible using the C# stored procs.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but this approach is not too dissimilar from what Oracle has done with Java.
How I love those new toys :) been playing with them for a week or so now. The SQL Server Management Studio is less Access like, with is good :)
-Mark
It's used as the eternal carrot... to keep the CTO from moving to a competetor's product that's already there and better. As long as 'real soon now' continues to inch ever closer, you can keep this up for an incredible length of time.
The mantra is: It's easier to stay with our junky product for X months than to go through the pain of migrating to their superior product. -- then, 6 months later, it's X-2 months.
If it finally comes out missing a couple of promised features (cut because 'we had to finally ship something!'), that's OK because it'll be in the next release ((due in X months).
Rinse-repeat.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
You must not be into Object Oriented programming where you separate out the logic into tiers: Persistence Layer, Biz Logic Layer and Presentation Layer. Also, you must have been a DB admin before you were an app developer. Or maybe you've never been an app developer.
The MiniMSFT blog you link to has a tendancy to report the negatives only. For instance, the blog post links to Wesner Moise's post regarding some VS 2005 bugs he'd found. What is not as well publicized is Wesner's next post, in which he says,
"Despite the few hiccups, I am enjoying VS 2005 and have been able to work with it productively. VS 2005 is stable and performant, and it's better to have it arrive now rather than later. The runtime is solid, and various products across Microsoft and outside also depend on it being delivered on a timely basis."
Yes, I've found a few minor hiccups in VS2005 as well. But honestly, it's nothing like MiniMSFT would have it seem. I can't speak for everyone, but VS2005 has been solid for us since RTM (we were a MS beta tester from Beta 1 through RTM), and we're very happy with its current form.
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Not fully true. Serious developers simply know, that they will most probably have to port the system to the new tools. The sooner they learn the features/problems of the new systems, the better for them. So you can be sure that there were lots of beta testers that had a strong motivation, and most of them quite happy with the feedback I guess. As for getting free copies - let's take e.g. Blizzard. People didn't get a free copy although they spent hours on playing WoW in the beta program. And nobody complained. Oh, and btw - these MS products are free, unless you plan to make money on them. Fair enough imho. Disclaimer: I don't want to sound too pro-MS, but I just got tired of people often attacking MS just for the sake of it.
Why choose a database like Postgresql? Freedom. How many times do you have to get burned by a license to learn? How many times do you have to discover some problem that is fixed in the next version, and then have to pay for the next version just for a bug fix? How many times will the license be changed to extract more money out of you, or features removed and placed in the more expensive version?
It is pretty easy to scale most things in a big n-tier system. Just buy more servers. The database however is really hard to scale. You quickly get to a point where twice the money will buy you only very little extra performance.
Therefore I treat the database as the "sacred resource". This almost always means that business logic is kept outside the database.
Your approach was right in the 80's when client/server was the norm. Today you should have an n-tier system and have the business logic in an application server.
You can still have lots of different applications while using centralized code. Only, now you call the application server instead of the database.
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Egads. Either this is a troll (good job - had me fooled), or yet another example of the bizarre lengths folks go when using .NET and don't know any better. Hey! Since you've got all your business logic in you db, simply switch to J2EE!
hmmm, I've found that particular form of reporting to get quickly unmanageable - with an explosion of hundreds of almost identical reports created, but not maintained by users. At one shop I visited they had so many that we could only test a sample of them - and found almost 50% to give incorrect results.
Since most reports of this type are created by users looking for answers to simple questions, i've found that creating dashboards with great navigation & drilling between graphs, charts, and tables to be a better option. This can then be managed by the warehouse or transactional database owners with its accuracy ensured.
Sigh, i've got one database that needs an upgrade right now and the only obstacle is the brio users with their reports that will break. I can't fix their reports, so I will have to give them some terribly-long transition time.
A BS programme in CS, without SQL? That's flawed.
Biting a troll? I dunno, but here goes.
MSDE: Not really a high-end database, even though I've seen it employed as one in production systems. Nasty, nasty.
However MSDE -does- have it's merrits. For a developer, you can pretty much count on that working against a lightweight MSDE will produce the exact same results when moving your code over to the production server running MS SQL server 2000. I think that's what the parent poster might have implied.
I'd take MS SQL Server Developer or Enterprise edition anyday, even for development, but not every company can afford one SQL-server licence per developer emloyed. In cases like that, people will likely go for MSDE.
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