Re: PostgreSQL in the press again

On Sun, Nov 14, 2004 at 02:11:48AM -0500, Christopher Browne wrote:
> I don't think I'd propose Ada (Andrew Sullivan would be aghast! ;-)),
> but I could see Perl or Python being reasonable languages for handling
> processes where the _real_ bottlenecks lie in database access.

Having been around at the time of the erserver Java decision, and
having lost the argument that translating it to Java was a waste of
time, I can tell you that erserver _was_ originally written in Perl
and, frankly, worked better as a prototype than as a final product.
But this brings us back to Jan's earlier point, which is generally
summed up in the maxim, "It's a poor workman who blames his tools."

The decision in favour of Java, BTW, is another bit of evidence that
threads are not some sort of magic seasoning you can sprinkle on
something and make it better.  The reason for picking Java was the
ease with which it could be multi-threaded.  Unfortunately, the
actual implementation essentially used multiple threads to build up a
big-giant snapshot which had to be applied serially to the slave.
This approach is also responsible for the snapshot-size limitations
built into the program.

I should note, for the record, that most of these problems were
subsequently addressed, although they mostly did exist in the
original BSD erserver.  (I'll also note that we're pretty far off
-advocacy charter, and so this is the last on this topic I'll say.)

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
The fact that technology doesn't work is no bar to success in the marketplace.
        --Philip Greenspun