"Carl E. McMillin" <carlymac@earthlink.net> writes:
> My name is Carl E. McMillin and I'm still establishing my balance in this
> particular knowledge domain with its nomenclature and entities.
>
Ok, I was thinking more the name behind pgsql@mohawksoft.com ;-)
> But Postgres isn't purely a storage solution; it is not just a place to
hang
> your data. Aren't stored procedures, whether SQL-based or backed by
native
> libraries, very much essential to application-logic performance and
> portability? Ok, portability may suffer, but they do help performance!
>
I agree. Some app logic is best performed in the backend. Especially if the
logic is storage intensitive or deals with advanced storage
constraints/rules. That's one of the reasons I wrote Pl/Java. In essence, I
don't think we disagree on anything. The only thing I'm reacting to is the
term "app-server" which I think is badly chosen. Stored procedures and
functions doesn't make a database an app-server, no matter what you put in
them.
> One of my personal interests is "hybridizing" a strong SQL
> execution-environment such as Postgres with an equally strong
> process-control framework so that components which would normally be in
the
> "middle" tier are directly accessible by way of "extensions". For
instance,
> constructs such as the following would be really useful in some
> bioinformatics-related consulting I'm involved in:
>
> SELECT * FROM get_list_of_hsp_from_blastall('ACGGATTAT', 'H_sapiens');
>
> The function "get_list_of_hsp_from_blastall" takes a primer ('ACGGATTAT')
> and an organism ('H_sapiens') and runs an external process called
"blastall"
> to locate "high-scoring pairs" where the primer "aligns well" with the
> organism's nucleotide-sequence (its genome). This would be a relatively
> trivial exercise if Postgres had a robust framework for process control -
> maybe it does, I haven't gotten many responses indicating yea or nay.
>
You can write your own functions in C and thereby get all the process
control you want. Or if you want to make life easier and get a more portable
solution (by my standards that is) why not use Java?
Kind regards,
Thomas Hallgren