söndag, november 18, 2007

Oracle developers on OSX unite!

All my ranting aside, Oracle RDBMS is pretty good. It's got good performance, and lots of features you really need in a database. I shan't proclaim it my favorite database, but it's definitely something I have no problem working with. Except for that one small detail...

Yeah, you guessed it. Oracle support on Mac OS X is kinda... nonexistent. The best solution I've come up with is to run Parallels with a Windows or Linux instance and run Oracle XE inside of that. But that only works if I want to use the JDBC thing driver. OCI development? You're screwed. And the Parallels route isn't exactly painless either. Especially from a performance point of view.

So what do we need? OCI8 precompiled binaries would be a good start. But in the end, the only workable solution for all developers on OSX in the world who wants to be able to use Oracle is a compatible Oracle XE for Intel OS X. It shouldn't really be to hard, right? It's just a BSD beneath the covers...

Anyway, it's kinda interesting. If you're a consultant or a developer, OS X is definitely the superior platform. That's a fact (well, except for Java 6...). The lack of Oracle support forces people to develop their application against Postgres and then let continuous integration - you are using CI, right? - tell you if you made any Oracle-unfriendly mistakes. That doesn't really sound to professional.

So, go on and vote for this in Oracle Mix. The links are here: https://mix.oracle.com/ideas/we-need-the-oracle-clients-oci-jdbc-for-the-apple-intel-osx-platform,
https://mix.oracle.com/ideas/compile-oracle-xe-for-intel-os-x

4 kommentarer:

Daniel Berger sa...

OS X? Better than Solaris as a development platform? For Oracle?

I think not, young grasshopper.

Anonym sa...

If raw performance is the problem, try VMWare Fusion instead of Parallels. It's faster and you can get it to give the virtual machine two of your cores. No Oracle head myself, but I'm guessing Oracle would find another core beneficial :)

Anonym sa...

Hey Ola,

I'm thinking of moving to OSX for development - what is it that makes you say it's better? Come on, help me justify going to the Apple Store and spending money :o)

No, seriously, what makes it cool?

Cheers

Anto

Anonym sa...

I tried to vote, but it won't let me use my yahoo account as it won't validate if I use a yahoo email? I don't get the "vote only if you are current Oracle customer thing.." ..

I'm already registered with Oracle though but I seriously don't get the not allowing people to vote unless they're bonafide oracle customers thing... I don't think you should have to verify up the wazoo just to vote up/down on a simple proposal...