SAPDB Open Souce

Hi guys,

I've used the open source SAPDB and the performance is pretty damned
impressive. However, 'open source' in application to it is somewhat
deceptive, since you have to make it with SAP's proprietary build
tools/environment.

In my opinion, however, it would be worth closely auditing SAP DB to see
what postgres can learn.

Gavin

On Sat, 28 Apr 2001, Matthew wrote:

Hi guys,

I've used the open source SAPDB and the performance is pretty damned
impressive. However, 'open source' in application to it is somewhat
deceptive, since you have to make it with SAP's proprietary build
tools/environment.

In my opinion, however, it would be worth closely auditing SAP DB to see
what postgres can learn.

I downloaded it. The directories are two characters in length, the
files are numbers, and it is a mixture of C++, Python, and Pascal. Need
I say more. :-)

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

I downloaded it. The directories are two characters in length, the
files are numbers, and it is a mixture of C++, Python, and Pascal. Need
I say more. :-)

1.) What is wrong with a mixture of C++, Python and Pascal? Nothing IMHO.

2.) The directory structure is probably the consequence of the development
tools (produced automatically). Such a structure can have advantages, too.

3.) I left Germany 6 years ago. I don't know what happened in the meantime,
but at that time (and the past 10 years before that) virtually any major
business and the majority of large hospitals were running on SAP. AFAIK,
similar in other european countries. Complaints about the horrendous price
structure (par with Oracle) - yes. Complaints about crappy user interfaces -
yes. Complaints about arrogant support team - yes. But *no* complaints
regarding data integrity, robustness, and almost no complaints regarding
performance.

Therefore, I think it should not be disregarded too quickly. There is
certainly something to learn from it by studying it; that would be probably
more productive than using the same time just thinking about own design.
(Maybe start looking at their developer manuals, which are *really* helpful
if you want to develop something with SAP).

I can't help it (as much as I admire Postgres, and as much as I like using
it), but I always perceive a certain air of arrogance blowing from this
list - a feeling I don't get from other open source projects. I might be
wrong here.

Regards,
Horst

Bruce Momjian wrote:

I downloaded it. The directories are two characters in length, the
files are numbers, and it is a mixture of C++, Python, and Pascal. Need
I say more. :-)

OK, I'll bite: you need to say more.

What is it like at handling transactions? What sort of full-text indexing does it
have? Can I have transactions within transactions? What sort of tools are
available for managing database extents? How compliant is it with the various SQL
standards? How does performance compare with PostgreSQL and others? Does it have
an extensible type system? Does it have an 'internal' language to compare with
PL/SQL or PL/PGSQL? How well does it scale on SMP systems? Can I perform a single
query across multiple databases? What performance monitoring tools does it come
with?

Hell, in a statement like that you don't even indicate if those directories are
so-named within the source code, or in an installed data environment. Whichever
environment they do apply to, however, I'm sure there are good systems in place for
dealing with them. And of course C++, Python and Pascal are all languages with
plenty of proponents, so there's no problem with those.

Your statement is so light on utility that it persuades me to download it for myself
and try it - but that is presumably exactly the effect you were after, wasn't it?

Regards,
Andrew.
--
_____________________________________________________________________
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I downloaded it. The directories are two characters in length, the
files are numbers, and it is a mixture of C++, Python, and Pascal. Need
I say more. :-)

Yes!

You, or better someone who knows SAP DB could tell if it's "probably the most
complete free database system available right now, with much more features
than interbase, mysql or postgresql" as this guy Hemos says on Slashdot.

I remember the same being said about Interbase when it was OSS'ed, but I
still stick to PostgreSQL.

But knowledge doesn't hurt, and as someone pointed out, you can't tell the
quality of the software from the names of your source code.
But it sure makes it a lot more difficult to understand what's going on, I'll
grant you that :-)

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Bruce Momjian wrote: > > I downloaded it. The directories are
two characters in length, the > files are numbers, and it is a
mixture of C++, Python, and Pascal. Need > I say more. :-)

OK, I'll bite: you need to say more.

What is it like at handling transactions? What sort of full-text
indexing does it have? Can I have transactions within transactions?
What sort of tools are available for managing database extents?
How compliant is it with the various SQL standards? How does
performance compare with PostgreSQL and others? Does it have
an extensible type system? Does it have an 'internal' language
to compare with PL/SQL or PL/PGSQL? How well does it scale on
SMP systems? Can I perform a single query across multiple
databases? What performance monitoring tools does it come with?

Hell, in a statement like that you don't even indicate if those
directories are so-named within the source code, or in an
installed data environment. Whichever environment they do apply
to, however, I'm sure there are good systems in place for dealing
with them. And of course C++, Python and Pascal are all languages
with plenty of proponents, so there's no problem with those.

Your statement is so light on utility that it persuades me to
download it for myself and try it - but that is presumably
exactly the effect you were after, wasn't it?

OK, basically, I couldn't figure out any of it. I am sure there are
useful things in there, but I can't figure out how to find any of them.
Hopefully others will be better at it than I am.

And yes, it would be good for people to look over the code and see if
they can find valuable things in it.

--
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

You, or better someone who knows SAP DB could tell if it's "probably the most
complete free database system available right now, with much more features
than interbase, mysql or postgresql" as this guy Hemos says on Slashdot.

I remember the same being said about Interbase when it was OSS'ed, but I
still stick to PostgreSQL.

But knowledge doesn't hurt, and as someone pointed out, you can't tell the
quality of the software from the names of your source code.
But it sure makes it a lot more difficult to understand what's going on, I'll
grant you that :-)

That was my point. It is very hard to make sense of the code, at least
for me.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

I have attached the original message and my reply. The person was
asking how we could used SAP "to see what postgres can learn". My reply
was to say that I couldn't figure how how to learn anything from the
code. That was my only statement.

I did not trash SAP DB. Seems using their development tools may make
the code much easier to understand. Hopefully someone will try.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi guys,

I've used the open source SAPDB and the performance is pretty damned
impressive. However, 'open source' in application to it is somewhat
deceptive, since you have to make it with SAP's proprietary build
tools/environment.

In my opinion, however, it would be worth closely auditing SAP DB to see
what postgres can learn.

I downloaded it. The directories are two characters in length, the
files are numbers, and it is a mixture of C++, Python, and Pascal. Need
I say more. :-)

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

I see one of my mistakes here. The person clearly said "you have to
make it with SAP's proprietary build tools/environment." I didn't
realize you need the build tools/environment to meaningfully view the
code. Of course, as someone else stated, the build tools/environment
have been open-sourced.

Can someone confirm that the build tools/environment makes the code
easier to understand? That would be good, and make it easier for us to
learn from it.

I have attached the original message and my reply. The person was
asking how we could used SAP "to see what postgres can learn". My reply
was to say that I couldn't figure how how to learn anything from the
code. That was my only statement.

I did not trash SAP DB. Seems using their development tools may make
the code much easier to understand. Hopefully someone will try.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi guys,

I've used the open source SAPDB and the performance is pretty damned
impressive. However, 'open source' in application to it is somewhat
deceptive, since you have to make it with SAP's proprietary build
tools/environment.

In my opinion, however, it would be worth closely auditing SAP DB to see
what postgres can learn.

I downloaded it. The directories are two characters in length, the
files are numbers, and it is a mixture of C++, Python, and Pascal. Need
I say more. :-)

-- 
Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
+  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
+  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

Bruce Momjian schrieb:

Hi guys,

I've used the open source SAPDB and the performance is pretty damned
impressive. However, 'open source' in application to it is somewhat
deceptive, since you have to make it with SAP's proprietary build
tools/environment.

In my opinion, however, it would be worth closely auditing SAP DB to see
what postgres can learn.

I downloaded it. The directories are two characters in length, the
files are numbers, and it is a mixture of C++, Python, and Pascal. Need
I say more. :-)

Well, I used to use PostgreSQL and Adabas / SAP-DB and after that it's
pretty much clear now, that there're not so many arguments for
PostgreSQL.

Marten

Horst Herb wrote:

I downloaded it. The directories are two characters in length, the
files are numbers, and it is a mixture of C++, Python, and Pascal. Need
I say more. :-)

1.) What is wrong with a mixture of C++, Python and Pascal? Nothing IMHO.

2.) The directory structure is probably the consequence of the development
tools (produced automatically). Such a structure can have advantages, too.

3.) I left Germany 6 years ago. I don't know what happened in the meantime,
but at that time (and the past 10 years before that) virtually any major
business and the majority of large hospitals were running on SAP. AFAIK,
similar in other european countries. Complaints about the horrendous price
structure (par with Oracle) - yes. Complaints about crappy user interfaces -
yes. Complaints about arrogant support team - yes. But *no* complaints
regarding data integrity, robustness, and almost no complaints regarding
performance.

Don't mix up SAP's application (R/3 today and R/2 before)
with SAP DB. Most of the customers I've seen (and I've worked
as an SAP R/3 base-consultant for the past 10 years) ran SAP
R/3 on top of Oracle. So that's where the integrity and
robustness came from. And I've got may complaints WRT
performance - but fortunately our projects where usually
located in the multi-$M range, so simply throwing bucks into
iron worked.

Jan

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