The SQL Server usability advantage

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Published Thursday, July 29, 2004 10:13 PM by RoyOsherove
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Thursday, July 29, 2004 11:49 PM by TrackBack

# MSSQL Overusability

Thursday, July 29, 2004 11:50 PM by TrackBack

# MSSQL Overusability

Friday, July 30, 2004 3:21 AM by Jason

# re: The SQL Server usability advantage

I completely agree about the usability thing. But I still think that Oracle makes a better database than Microsoft. They have just successfully hid that fact through their lack of useful or practical tools.
Why use toad, or SqlPlus when you can use Query Analyzer ?

I haven't been ambitious enough to set it up myself to test it out, but one of Oracle's main selling points for 10g is that it 'will administer itself'. I sure hope so, because it never did before. With the price drop on Oracle Standard edition I think the only thing they are lacking is an atleast half decent IDE. If they don't come out with one, then I think the new Workbench will wreak some major havok on Oracle's ability to sell their flagship product.

I find myself torn between the two.
Friday, July 30, 2004 9:00 AM by Memi Lavi

# re: The SQL Server usability advantage

We are doing a lot of projects with Oracle, and I must say I absolutely agree with you.
I'm far from being DB expert, but I do know how to backup, restore, import, exprot, attach, detach and scedule in SQL Server, but I have no clue how to do that in Oracle. Oh yes, I do know how to do this with PL/SQL Developer, but that's not Oracle product, is it?
Friday, July 30, 2004 10:42 AM by Ryan Rinaldi

# re: The SQL Server usability advantage

FYI: The "identities across multiple tables" is called a sequence. It's not really the same as an identity column, because it isn't automatic. You need to request a number from it and insert that into a table.

Anyway, I did some work with Oracle 8i and I didn't really enjoy it. The database being case sensitive was annoying, length limitations on column names, table names, and key names was even more so!
Friday, July 30, 2004 7:47 PM by Yaniv Harpaz

# re: The SQL Server usability advantage

I totally disagree... let get into perspective.
I'm sorry to inform most of you that an Oracle DBA is a profession, and quite a good one. Oracle is NOT intended for point & click (the personal editions are for training at home).
Oracle has a lot more options so you could have performance and scalability. If you need to develop by yourself without a DBA, that's ok, use SQL Server and enjoy the warm feeling of the All-Microsoft touch (SQL server will let you drag & drop most of the database design mistakes from Access)
If you are planning a big project with serious issues of performance and high-availability, in most cases you would get yourself a decend Oracle DBA, do whatever you develop with the DBA working on his side.
With Oracle it's just the same with everything - Learning earning and yearning !
Friday, July 30, 2004 8:04 PM by Jon Galloway

# re: The SQL Server usability advantage

Same problem with DB2. I'm amazed at how bad the admin tools are, and in how complicated simple development and administrative are. The project I'm currently working on was done in DB2 due to the incorrect assumption that it would to ensure the application would be faster and more stable than an MS SQL based system.

The truth is that, since it's so much harder to do the simple things, there's never time or money to do all the cool tweaking and performance enhancing that DB2 can theoretically support. And when there's a production issue, it's a nightmare.

Just because other databases make administration hard doesn't mean they're more powerful. The TPC-W stats show MS SQL is right up there with DB2 (above in most cases) at half the cost: http://www.tpc.org/tpcw/results/tpcw_results.asp?print=false&orderby=dbms&sortby=asc