Programming languages in the future

[dany12]

What do you think about PL/SQL ?
Is this a language worth learning for the feature along with SAP?

[tesuji]

Hello

Greetings from the hood.

PL/SQL is Oracle's extention to SQL. It is similar to PSM the standardized ANSI SQL programming language. Actually many of the new features of PSM standardized in 1999 and 2003 were derived from PL/SQL. In my opinion, If one plans to work in the field of Oracle databases, PL/SQL is a must. Also postgresql and maxdb (Oracle clone from SAP) are based on PL/SQL.

As for SAP, I assume you are meaning R/3 or mySAP, it has its own programming language ABAP (formerly "Allgemeiner Berichtsaufbereitungsprozessor" now "Advanced Business Application Programming") derived from Cobol. Seriously doing development (customizing etc.) requiere good knowledge in ABAP and its workbench. Since 2004 when Plattner left SAP also Java has been defined to be co-equal programming language to ABAP.

That fits the bill for in 2003 the SQL committee has appointed Java to be the coming programming language for SQL databases. Unfortunately, there are only a few database vendors so far which support Java in SQL/Databases, for example: Oracle, IBM, Sybase.

For the long term Java will become the most important language for databases (=Oracle) and for R/3 & mySAP.

So doing business on both fields Oracle and SAP one should have good knowlegde in PL/SQL, ABAP and increasingly Java.

Notes: Besides PL/SQL or PSM there are other very mportant languages, for example C, C++, Java, PHP depending on the interface (ODBC, ADO, JDBC, embedded SQL). One should also consider that PL/SQL and PSM are very limited a compared to C, C++, Java. Also runtime could be problematic, for example I have done benchmarks for testing special numeric algorithmns written in C, PL/SQL and PSM where the C solutions were about 1000 times (yes thousand) faster.

-- tesu

[user123454321]

Oracle has already stated that PL/SQL will be included in the 12c release meaning that it will continue to be supported for years to come. Many of the people who are stating that PL/SQL is being phased out are people who are familiar with using Java in stored procedures, but really there is no sense in not learning it especially if it is your first relational database language. It is recommended that if you are looking to move into this field that you also take some time and learn a bit of Java in order to "future proof" your knowledge as Oracle continues to move towards complete Java integration in database triggers (Oracle DBA). Another benefit to learning the Java side of things is having a one up on those in the current field by already knowing where Oracle is heading in the future.

"Oracle DBA: Comparison between Java and PL/SQL." Oracle DBA: Comparison between Java and PL/SQL. Oracle DBA, n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2014. http://oracledbaconsolidation.blogspot.com/p/comparison-between-java-and-plsql.html