Oracle

[Dave Hull]

Quoting Brian Densmore <DensmoreB at ctbsonline.com>:

> Right, I knew that, but this is a fullblown shrink-wrapped enterprise level
> version with all the bells and whistles and documents. Which is a bit
> different than the download version (which I ordered from Oracle way back) on
> a CD from Oracle, I think I also have the 9i download version on CD.

According to Oracle's web site, the versions available for download are the full
versions. Even the documentation is available for download. We've been using the
downloaded versions where I work in a production environment (yes we have the
licenses) for a few years and I can tell you they are identical to the packaged
versions we received in the mail after we bought the licenses.

I prefer to grab the latest ISOs from Oracle though because they have the most
recent patchsets applied.

If you got 9i on a single CD, you must have a "personal" version or something
because 9i requires three CDs... 10G requires only one CD, or so I was told by
our Oracle rep.

> Well, I've been wanting to play with some databases for a while, but I have
> some real projects I will be working on also.

Good luck. I usually reach for MySQL first. We've been using the 4.1.2 version
with full support for referential integrity and transactions with great success
in production for nearly a year with only one strange bug that has recently been
addressed by the developers.

MySQL is much easier to manage than Oracle, IMHO. But if you're dealing with
money, it's probably a safer bet to stick with Oracle, though I'm not sure
that's going to be true for much longer.

--
Dave Hull
http://insipid.com