[Novalug] Using DBDesigner4 for DBMS other than MySQL

Peter Larsen plarsen@famlarsen.homelinux.com
Tue May 15 13:20:33 EDT 2007


Theodore Ruegsegger wrote:
> Ken quoted me:
>>>> After all SQL is SQL and the only DBMS-specific syntax is in
> 
> and commented:
>> Unless it's PL/SQL.
> 
> Well, if Javascript is Java, then I guess it's reasonable to say that
> PL/SQL is SQL. ;-)
> 
> But I would say instead that PL/SQL is a procedural language (which
> SQL is most definitely not). It happens to be aimed at SQL-aware DBMS
> (PL/SQL is a proprietary Oracle language but other DBMS have similar,
> in name and description, languages) but isn't SQL itself.

Well, this is one of the reasons a lot of these tools fail on my table. 
They simply do "basic SQL" and databases today are way beyond that 
point. To me, a model contains constraints, triggers and other business 
process rules that make the model work. These are mostly implemented in 
a procedural programming language and becomes an integral part of the 
database design. It's really key to be able to include at a very minimum 
triggers, but most likely procedures/packages (in Oracle) as part of the 
common API that most likely is shared among the tables.

Simple code to deal with sequences and security rules are important, 
just as important as modelling views is. They're all necessary to have a 
functional database schema.

Of course there's types of API that's specific for the application use, 
such as batch processing etc.  Those aren't an internal part of the 
database schema; and should be placed in a separate database schema anyway.

Btw. Java and JavaScript shares a LOT more than SQL and PL/SQL does :)

> This fills a need for tasks that are more easily handled (or
> understood) procedurally.

Unfortunately there are tasks today that cannot be controlled via SQL, 
including that of complex constraints (ie. saying that a value must be 
located in a table where the look value is computed or more complex than 
a simple "column to column" mapping).

--
   Peter Larsen
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