This section contains articles and papers on important issues in database today. It is a forum for concepts and ideas that receive little or no coverage from the mainstream media. The papers and articles in this section deal with general database ideas and are not vendor-specific.

There are 2 sub-sections:

• Technical Articles - detailed discussions of important technical concepts in database.
• Issue Papers - controversial opinion papers on important database issues.

Technical Articles
This sub-section contains articles on database technical topics. The technical information provided is not vendor-specific; it is of general interest to database users and developers.

It is the purpose of this sub-section to fill in the cracks - to provide information not available elsewhere.

Contents

• SQL Tutorial, a comprehensive tutorial on the database sub-language -- SQL.
• Using Native Wrappers in FirstSQL, Native O/R Wrappers Using Objects in the Database.
• Performance Benchmarks, a detailed look at performance of simple and complex Insert and Select statement processing.
• ODBC Thread Safety, a detailed look at the use of the ODBC API in multi-threaded environments - thread-safe ODBC drivers and thread-safe applications.
• Extended Referential Integrity, a discussion of self-referencing and cross-referencing Referential Integrity.
• Highly Available Databases, a in-depth examination of High Availability for Database Servers (Online Backup, Replication Servers, Fail-Over to Standby Servers.)

Issue Papers
This sub-section contains opinion papers on important issues in database. Much of the material in this sub-section is controversial.

Even though Relational Systems dominate the database landscape, the Relational Model is under attack from within. The Relational Model suffers from poor implementations. The products from major Relational DBMS vendors are proprietary, contain well-known bugs and are weak in Relational Functionality. Standards, including ODBC, are held hostage by large vendors with their own predatory agenda. The Relational Model and Open Standards are pawns in the competitive battles between the giants.

The users of database systems are the ones shortchanged by the inadequacies of these systems. The computer press is concerned with bells & whistles and with top-selling products, ignoring the real issues of usability, compatibility and functionality. This forum will try to shed some light on these areas.

Contents

• Should Nulls be considered harmful?, an examination of the controversy over Nulls in Relational Database and the issue of missing information.
• ... bridges could collapse, spacecraft could fall out of the sky, and so on', Do DBMSs Process Subqueries Correctly?, the logic flaws in ANSI SQL and most RDBMSs and what can be done about them.
• Open Database Access and ODBC, a look at open standards for database access, Microsoft's ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) and the future of ODBC.
• Relational Databases, Do Users Benefit?, are relational databases beneficial to users?
• In Defense of Nulls, a controversial position paper by one of the founders of FFE Software.
• A Response to Jim Gray's "A Call to Arms".