Database Language Smackdown

I've tried just about every language I could get my hands on, at one time or another. For the last decade, the big focus was usually to see how well they worked in conjunction with a database.

My big epiphany was taking ownership of the Oracle Database PL/SQL User's Guide and Reference, which I owned for the 9i release and have since relinquished. At the same time, I was writing what now comprises about 100KLOC of PL/SQL code for "Project Tahiti", the database that provides search, hypertext navigation, remote lookup, and related capabilities for the Oracle documentation. (Of course, as is often the case, my biggest insights about the strengths, weaknesses, and best practices for PL/SQL came after I stopped owning the book.)

One thing I always wanted to do was some compare-and-contrast essays for different languages, with my opinions of how they complemented Oracle's SQL dialect and PL/SQL procedural language, and the easiest way for a programmer in language X to approach PL/SQL.

So, that's what I'll do in a series of blog posts. Stay tuned.