beginner to DBMS

[aman rathi]

hello every one
I am a student of CS and in this semester i have a subject DBMS, i haven't do any programming with sql till now, i am completely new to it, here i want to know that about different DBMS software. in our coll we have oracle 8i, is there any other DBMS in market better than it. so please list all DBMS softwares and their features.
and lastly if we compare oracle 8i and oracle 9i which is better and also suggest me any of system for my studies.
from where i can get these these software?

also mention any tips from your experience that will help me plzz rply now..

[griswolf]

Oracle has a very good reputation. You may also want to look at MySql and Postgresql which are free and quite robust, but may not have such "nice" tools. In my career, I have found it very good to use more than one (programming language, or compiler, or DBMS) when I work on things: This makes me sure that what I'm doing is not "married" to the one tool I learned with, but is more universal: I'm better trained to work anywhere that has any of these tools.

The main issue with learning SQL is that it is not like other programming languages: No variables, no functions etc. Instead you pretty much tell the engine what you want and it figures out how to do it. (This is simplistic: Real DBMSs let you write scripts, but SQL does not). You need to read a text or two, and do some exercises. Not just a few, but many with different requirements. There are a lot of good books and many good online resources.

Good luck.

[aman rathi]

thanks
one question more...
please give me the brief details of different oracle softwares and their availability.
In our institute we have oracle 8i...is it a good one or i prefer to other.

please also mention their launching dates.

[aman rathi]

thanks
one question more...
please give me the brief details of different oracle softwares and their availability.
In our institute we have oracle 8i...is it a good one or i prefer to other.

please also mention their launching dates.

[tesuji]

Well, Oracle went to the Internet with version 8i (i for Internet). That happened in 1999. Since then there were versions 9i, 10g, and 11g in 2007.

So 8i is somewhat outdated. There have been dramatic improvements since 8i. If you want to stay with Oracle, I suggest free 10g express version (there isn't 11g express so far).

If you have free choice, I suggest to try free Sybase SQL Anywhere V12 developer (which is, in my opinion, simply the best for beginners), a complete database system, almost 100% ANSI SQL 1999/2003 (no fakes and flaws a la mysql), programable in almost all languages (ada, fortran, cobol, c, c++, Java, mumps, php, perl, ruby, .net, jsp ...), runs on Windows, Linux, Mac, is embedable, leading product in mobile computing..., MS SQL Server is derived from Sybase (licenced in 1995), however Sybase is more modern and has better coverage of ANSI SQL, (no, I am not an agent of Sybase).

-- tesu

[aman rathi]

thank you very much...
please can you give me the direct links to download the DBMS you mentioned above...

[tesuji]

Hello

Developer version can be downloaded here. It doesn't matter whether you use V11.0.1 or V12.0.0. However, V11.0.1 is absolute stable (you should update to newest EBF, express bug fix) and V12.0.0 has been out for some months and doesn't support all languages, only English so far. I have both running on Linux, and they are absolutely stable. I have forgotten to mention in my prior posting that sqlanywhere v12 already supports many of the new ANSI SQL2008 standards.

You will get a developer key per email, what you will have to enter when install it.

btw, what is your operating system?

--tesu

[aman rathi]

i m using windows xp service pack 2
is it good one or i change it??

[tesuji]

XP is a pretty good OS. No reason for changing it. Regardless of your future database wouldn't it a good idea to install service pack 3? Consider, MS has stopped further development of XP, there are only security-updates, so sp3 is important.

-- tesu