[geeks] MS interesting?

[joshua d boyd]

Came across this (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/20879.html) on
the register.

First, it seems that Exchanges uses Jet currently (that explains a lot of
why it sucks so much).  But that wasn't the interesting part.

What is interesting is the future paths for data storage and
handling.  For instance, TransactSQL is going to be a .NET language, and
so any language will be useable for writing stored procedures.  Does any
other database allow such flexibility?  Everything I've looked at has been
Java (slow) SQL (a pain) or C for embeded code, a lousy set of choices I
think.

It also seems that the database server and file system are to be
integrated together (something that people have talked about doing with
relation to ReiserFS but in an opposite manor).  All files are just
records in a SQL server table.  In general SQL server is going to be
upgraded to be better at handling semi/un structured data.

Also, it looks like more programs will finally use streams (ReiserFS has
it, I think, but I don't think it is used) for storing data.  For
instance, Word documents will be a series of streams (not sure what this
will mean for a Word file, but obvious benifits for email, usenet, etc as
BeOS demonstraighted).

All in all, it looks really interesting. For one thing, it probably means
that all desktop users will have SQL Server.  It will probably also be
crap.  Why aren't these things happening more in civilized land?

All linux distributions come with either MySQL, Postgres, or both.  But
the last I tried, they didn't come setup ready to work out of the box.  I
wish I could distribute applications that depend on MySQL or Postgres as
easily as I can dist. programs that rely on Access or Berkely.  It would
make life a lot easier.

And I wish that there was a bit more support for semi/un structured
data.  It is something I try to use a lot.  Right now I'm using XML, but
XML lacks a lot of infrastructure (like being able to search, etc).

Anyway, just thought some people might be interested in this even if they
never use it.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd