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“Compare to Java and C where typing until your fingers fall off usually doesn’t result in much of anything. SQL, Lisp, and Haskell are the only programming languages that I’ve seen where one spends more time thinking than typing.”

Python.

Quoting from the PHP.net function reference:
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/ref.oci8.php
LXXXVI. Oracle 8 functions
…
These functions allow you to access Oracle9, Oracle8 and Oracle7 databases. It uses the Oracle Call Interface (OCI).

This extension … supports binding of global and local PHP variables to Oracle placeholders, has full LOB, FILE and ROWID support and allows you to use user-supplied define variables.

Also, Phil – I’d be curious to see your opinion of how Postnuke/PHP-Nuke etc stack up against the ACS

Snobbery provokes snobbery, I guess…

My point to tlack was, Naum, that instead if opting for one technology, I am a jack of all trades, like you. And it’s that ability that enables us to make good money for a long time to come whereas those that so snobbishly say: “this is the best, everyone uses it, I can’t be bothered with anything else and you and your silly postgres are out of a job” usualy do only for a while. If somebody wants to pay me this much to do PHP+MySQL, I’ll take it, I don’t care. But that doesn’t make PHP a better language or MySQL a better database.

PS: just read tlack’s comment again. About me being on the “losing, unpopular camp”. You know what’s funny about the MySQL vs. Postgres debate? It’s that nobody ever seems to come up with a good reason why MySQL is better than Postgres, other than “more people use it, there are more tools and more books”. But never a solid, technical reason. When you point out a flaw, the response is always: “oh, you don’t really need that anyway”, “it will have that in the next version” and “it’s not _that_ bad!”. Funny.

Again, more snobbery.

I’ve also had a “lucrative career” requiring me to know how to code “COBOL, BAL, Java, C, REXX, CLIST, Perl, $RANDOMSCRIPTINGORPROPRIETARY LANG, to go along with the “overpriced, underperforming middleware” and “UNIX and internet plumbing” as you eloquently express. However, building sites with F/OSS like MySQL and PHP has been lucrative for me too, both in terms of getting to do more enjoyable work and financially, though not in the sense of occupying a “25K annual salary” slot as you allude to.

And those Java programmer slots are soon to become 25K year jobs too. In they eyes of the CIO, in much of the corporate world, all coding is low level grunt “monkey work”, to be farmed out to offshore vendor bodyshops in Asian locales, or staffed by imported non-immigrant visa workers. Unless it’s a special niche, like whatever trendy flavor of “silver bullet” is in vogue, like SAP, or perhaps some esoteric middleware that forms the crux of critical company appllications, but a dearth of knowledgable individuals. A better strategy would be to garner that shiny “Project Managment Institute” diploma certificate or landing a post managing an offshore team or cleverly jockeying into an architect position where it really doesn’t matter (again, in the eyes of the CIO leadership ranks), if you ever coded a lick.

PS: Philip, thanks for getting me started in that carreer with photo.net

No, you have that all wrong, tlack. Looking at monster.co.uk, if you want a 25K/year carreer, you pimp yourself as “PHP and MySQL developer”. I prefer the rather more lucrative carreer that requires me to know how to code Java, C, various scripting languages and quickly pick up anything else they throw at me. All the while using all 3 major commercial RDBMSs and various other overpriced, underperforming and unreliable pieces of middleware crap “enterprises” just love to waste their money on. Not to mention all the Unix and internet plumbing most of those 25K PHP developers are oblivious to.

Postgres is just for fun at home or dot-coms.

mysql> select avg(length(message)), count(*) from posts;
avg(length(message)) count(*)
128.9908 2005468
1 row in set (8.89 sec)

Well, yes, MySQL has won (so far), just like MS-DOS won the OS wars in the 80s. But that’s because, unfortunately, in our world worse is better, not because MySQL is anything but a half-assed sorry excuse for a CSV handler with SQL syntax.

(There are many other examples of “worse is better” in the technology world. Just ask Phil about his opinions on LISP vs. C…).

Programming environment elitism is so much fun. It always seems to be those in the losing, unpopular camp that have to claim to be smartest. Unfortunately for Bas, MySQL has won the war and any developer that wants a career can skip the Postgres.

PHP may be ugly at times but it works well and predictably, supports everything on earth, and it’s installed on millions and millions of servers.