AW: Difference between Apache's Cocoon and Oracle's XSQL/ XSU tec hnol ogies

[Henning von Bargen <H....@triestram-partner.de>]

> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von:	Donald Ball [SMTP:balld@webslingerZ.com]
> Gesendet am:	Freitag, 9. Februar 2001 01:51
> An:	cocoon-users@xml.apache.org
> Betreff:	Re: Difference between Apache's Cocoon and Oracle's XSQL/
XSU technol ogies
> 
> On Thu, 8 Feb 2001 AKhan@burntsand.com wrote:
> 
> > I apologise if this might sound a bit daft - but could anyone
> > explain what the key differences between Cocoon and Oracle's
> > XSQL technolgyare  - they seem to be doing  pretty much the
> > same kind of thing.

I see several differences:

Functionality:
Cocoon is a more allround framework, XSQL is more or less only for creating
XML from queries/stored procedures.
In fact, I don't see anything you can do with XSQL that you couldn't do with
Cocoon, Donald's ESQL and Marcello's DBPrism as well, but I don't know the
latest XSQL.

Cocoon is open to all other databases as well. I don't know if this is true
for XSQL,
it might use some special features of the Oracle JDBC drivers.

Integration: AFAIK XSQL/XSU can be tightly integrated with the Oracle 8i
database,
and maybe Oracle will integrate the Apache web server more and more into the
database
so that maybe you can use the Oracle 8i internal JDBC driver with XSQL one
day to
get better performance.

Performance: Has anyone compared it? I think there shouldn't be a
significant difference.

The next points are valid for most free open-source software:

Price: Cocoon is free.

Support: Oracle's XSQL is a commercial product which means you have
professional support (?!).
What is your experience with MetaLink if you had a serious problem with
Oracle software?
The Cocoon user lists give you good support usually if you've read the FAQ.
Also you can always try yourself  to find the cause for a specific problem
with
good chances to find it.

Releasing: This is the one big problem with Cocoon:
Since there is still no C2 release, you have to check carefully if you can
work with Cocoon1 for now and what the difficulties are when you upgrade to
C2.

Active Development: You have to decide: Will Cocoon development continue and

is Cocoon still available in 3 or 5 years? The same question for XSQL?
If Donald should ever leave the development of Cocoon, will someone else
maintain
the ESQL logicsheet? (if nobody will, you can always improve it yourself).
If Oracle should determine to stop XSQL development or to desupport a
feature you
need than it is bad luck for you, there's nothing you can do.

Trust: Are your customers willing to use a non-commercial product at all?
In Germany, many customers don't trust in non-commercial software
for reasons that I don't understand...

> 
> they do do similar things. one difference is that cocoon's got a little
> thing we call XSP which lets you dynamically create XML from arbitrary
> data sources, not just SQL databases. i also happen to think that my esql
> language knocks the socks off of oracle's xsql language, but that's just a
> personal opinion.
> 
> (personally, i'm still a little sore at oracle because they rebuffed my
> early attempts to collaboratively develop a standard xml language for
> doing sql queries and rendering their results. we had a window of
> opportunity to develop such a thing and failed. but i digress.)

It's a shame...

> 
> c2 lets you do powerful things in terms of mapping urlspace to filespace
> (or, rather, pipeline-space); i'm not aware that xsql does anything in
> that regard. furthermore, cocoon is community developed open source, while
> oracle's stuff isn't.
> 
> - donald
> 

As an alternative to use XSQL or Cocoon, if you want to generate just HTML
or XML
and not PDF, you can also choose to use Oracle Portal (the former Web DB) or
to
write XML/HTML producing stored procedures yourself.