Reply to: Let the Database Do the Work...

[eek]

Look I get a kick back on all additional Oracle licence fees. Somehow I've got to make up for the crap rate I'm on here.

[original PM]

Are you Welsh by any chance?

Thats fighting talk that is!

[Pondlife]

It's me!


Now, what's a database again?

[Spacecadet]

Not me boyo!!! :-)

FTFY

[psychocandy]

Odd situation this but I've been on a contract where they've brought in 2 people, myself & another guy, to complete a small project.

We decided that I'd do all the front end stuff & he'd do the middle tier & database stuff.

We're left to our own devices but have to report to management periodically to give progress updates. And therein lies the rub...

...A pattern has emerged in which I outline any design issues I have & how I intend to deal with them. Once I've finished speaking, there is a brief silence and my counterpart always says, without fail, the following words:

"My database can do that for you" ....then some explanatory guff.... followed by "let the database do the work. It's what it's there for"

He's like one of those characters in Viz who always turns up with a box of tricks that can fix any given situation.

The worst thing is that the management seem to like him; "The Welsh Wizard" they all call him.

Anyhow, his solutions have become more and more preposterous & I nearly choked on my coffee this morning when I was talking about some recursive templates I was going to use to display a load of hierarchical data on a web page.

He started off, as ever with "my database can do that..." and sat there straight faced as he explained how he was going to get his database to churn out the html that was going to be used on my web page... "let the database do the work...."

Then I had to go through the process of explaining why that isn't a good idea & by the time we'd finished we'd been in there 3 hours. It's like banging your head against a brick wall sometimes...

Just wondering if anyone else has encountered this individual. He seems to have been around a bit (wouldn't be surprised if he posts on here).

Not me !!! :-)

[Spacecadet]

No, the queries could not be optimised any further (they even pulled in Oracle consultants at great expense).

Querying a database either costs CPU (the data is in memory) or I/O (the data is not in memory). If your load is great, you run out of CPU. Adding CPU's to Oracle Enterprise is a very costly way to scale.

You still have to query the database whether the queries are in PL/SQL or not!

Anyway, I have a feeling your being facetious so i'll stop

[DimPrawn]

Thats probably down to crap database queries, which would still be crap if they were taken out of the PL/SQL blocks and put into front or middleware applications.

No, the queries could not be optimised any further (they even pulled in Oracle consultants at great expense).

Querying a database either costs CPU (the data is in memory) or I/O (the data is not in memory). If your load is great, you run out of CPU. Adding CPU's to Oracle Enterprise is a very costly way to scale.

[Spacecadet]

I've faced a similar situation before with an Oracle bod.

Basically Oracle Whatever can do anything. It can replace everything and handle everything and everything is brilliant.

So they "Let the database do the work" for a heavily loaded web system. PL/SQL blocks generated all the data and it was wonderful, until they started loading it.

Then they found it was running out of RAM so they added more RAM. Then it was running out of CPU power and they realised they'd have to buy a lot more CPU licences and these costs millions of pounds (someone has to pay for Larry Ellison's super yachts).

Then they realised they were fooked.


If instead, they had let some cheap commodity servers running C# or C++ or PHP do the work, they could have added a load of them for peanuts.

Moral of story, databases like Oracle don't make very good middleware or web servers, and if you use them in this way it costs a lot of money.

HTH BIVMDI.

Thats probably down to crap database queries, which would still be crap if they were taken out of the PL/SQL blocks and put into front or middleware applications.

[DimPrawn]

FoxPro ftw!!!

MS FoxPoo

[Churchill]

FoxPro ftw!!!

[OwlHoot]

I agree with the above 2

you can pretty much store and retrieve anything from a database nowadays

they are like magic!

Are you Welsh by any chance?

[DimPrawn]

I've faced a similar situation before with an Oracle bod.

Basically Oracle Whatever can do anything. It can replace everything and handle everything and everything is brilliant.

So they "Let the database do the work" for a heavily loaded web system. PL/SQL blocks generated all the data and it was wonderful, until they started loading it.

Then they found it was running out of RAM so they added more RAM. Then it was running out of CPU power and they realised they'd have to buy a lot more CPU licences and these costs millions of pounds (someone has to pay for Larry Ellison's super yachts).

Then they realised they were fooked.


If instead, they had let some cheap commodity servers running C# or C++ or PHP do the work, they could have added a load of them for peanuts.

Moral of story, databases like Oracle don't make very good middleware or web servers, and if you use them in this way it costs a lot of money.

HTH BIVMDI.

[wurzel]

I wonder when Gollum(The OP) realises this fella is taking over.

I put my foot down when I need to.

To be honest, we're both on the same rate, neither of us is going to be there once this thing has gone live so in a lot of ways I'm quite content to watch him make a rod for his own back.

[wurzel]

Maybe I'm missing something, but if the database can generate the content, why is this a bad idea?

Isn't that what all dynamic websites do?

Separation of presentation, business logic & data access layers? Besides, it's an MVC application & his database solution really would not sit well within that particular framework.

Wouldn't like to have to use it in any situation, frankly. Just from a maintainability point of view.

[MarillionFan]

I agree with the above 2

you can pretty much store and retrieve anything from a database nowadays

they are like magic!

Sounds like the work of the Welsh Wizard. I wonder when Gollum(The OP) realises this fella is taking over.