The application I am currently maintaining as an independent contractor uses the Sybase database server. I was the original developer as an employee of American Management Systems. I used the Sybase Embedded SQL precompiler, the Sybase host language interface, and ANSI C to develop an application on UNIX that implemented an interface between a new client server application and a legacy IBM mainframe legacy system. This application was developed to run on both Windows NT and HPUX UNIX. In the process of building this application I became the defacto HPUX and Sybase system administrator. The application includes considerable use of Unix shell scripts and utilities. Sybase supplies a precompiler that is strictly ANSI SQL compatible. This means that if one wants to do something not defined in the ANSI SQL standard then the Sybase host language interface must be used. Since I needed to maintain text with arbitrary size, I had to learn and use the host language interface for that purpose. I attended the Sybase training in the host language interface for both client and auxillary server after having learned OJT how to do this stuff. The class was interesting as I learned things I wished I had known when I started on this project.
Sybase has some very interesting technology that is relatively simple to use. I think that those who listen to Larry Elleson should take a look at Sybase as well. Oracle may be a wonderful product, but the amount of effort to administer it and write applications using it may make Sybase look pretty good.
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