Conference ulysse::rdb_vms_competition

799.0. "ORACLE v6 - Application Development Woes" by VNASWS::LOBSANG (The Bug Stops Here) Fri Nov 16 1990 14:07

I am currently involved in a project where the customer decided to use
ORACLE with ALL-IN-1. I wrote the code that integrates ORACLE's SQL into
ALL-IN-1 using ORACLE's dynamic sql implementation. 

My impressions from this experience with ORACLE v6 are as follows:

	1. For a software developer ORACLE's documentation leaves an 
	   awful lot to be desired. I wrote my code in PASCAL but had to
	   read the C manual as well to get an understanding of the
	   data structures used by ORACLE,etc.... Furthermore, the
	   example programs supplied contained errors that were
	   detectable only at run time causing the program to crash.

	2. When installing ORACLE, the installation procedure failed if
	   I used '<' instead of '[' in directory specifications.

	3. After precompiling the sample Pascal program, the resulting 
	   Pascal code would not compile as the ORACLE PASCAL Precompiler
	   had produced a syntactically incorrect Pascal statement. I
	   was forced to edit the precompiled code to get it to compile
	   correctly.

	4. If an image is created in single-task mode, the link procedure
	   provided by ORACLE creates a based image which is something not
	   recommended by Digital and documented accordingly in the Linker
	   Manual. This left me with a real bad feeling especially as we
	   are still having problems with the ALL-IN-1 image crashing at
	   irregular times.

	5. If one links with the two-task option, then the image created is
	   not based. However, when running the resulting image created
	   and connecting to ORACLE followed by a disconnect 
	   (EXEC SQL ROLLBACK RELEASE), one cannot again connect to
	   ORACLE from within the same image. 
	   
	6. There is absolutely nothing in the ORACLE documentation as to
	   how one goes about creating a shareable image to work with
	   ORACLE. With the link procedure that ORACLE provides, it is
	   impossible to link to create a shareable image. We had two
	   'sessions' with the ORACLE support people who stated that
	   we should not change the ORACLE link procedure but at the same
	   time refused to explicitly acknowledge that ORACLE did not
	   support the use of shareable images. The first of these 
	   'sessions' was highly emotional and defensive on the part of
	   the ORACLE people. All we wanted was to get the problems fixed
	   and the application running.

Currently, the ALL-IN-1 image is still prone to crashes. Has anyone  else
experienced anything similar. Does anyone know if the ORACLE kernel code is
'buggy' with reference to VAXCRTL.EXE instead of ORACRTL.EXE. I get the
feeling that developing a stand-alone image with ORACLE is OK but that 
it is not suited for more complicated applications that require close 
inter-action with other software products. 

Lobsang Gyalpo
Austrian Integration Centre

DIR/TITLE=SHARE didn't show them, but I know there are notes here
dealing with the shareable image problem.  You'll have to find them
yourself.

The upshot of the ones I read says that some talented people invested
a lot of time and effort trying to get Oracle to work with shareable
images, and could only come close.  I guess youll have to scan
all the Oracle notes to see what I mean.

Good hunting, and good luck!

JPB