Where is database programming going? To wind down this month’s Special Report on database programming, we spoke to a dozen programmers and managers in the trenches to learn what they think the future holds for database programmers.
Here are their conclusions:
Java is far from useful. Despite the considerable the hype about the language and its promise for all sorts of interoperability, as of late 1997 it’s still a slow, immature programming system. Tools and extensions are being developed at a swift rate, so this may change. But for the next six months, no one is trusting mission-critical databases to Java-not even Sun and Oracle, its two most prominent boosters. There is no such thing as an obsolete database language. Not only did we find programmers working with hoary dBase, we found a few still prototyping large projects in FileMakerPro. Further, you can guess how the Year 2000 program has reenergized the COBOL crew.
Microsoft doesn’t rule. Even those committed to Windows NT as a platform tend to go with other database server vendors-and few want to change. Oracle does. No surprise there. The Net will make programmers’ lives easier. Because there is a common client (the Web browser), programmers don’t have to worry whether machines are equipped wit h specific drivers, DLLs, etc. The browser as universal client means real interoperability.
Key corporate data will remain on mainframes into the next millennium…unless those two-digit dates don’t get updated to four digits.
Database size will continue to grow. Expect to hear the word “terabyte” more and more.
Where do you think database programming is going? We want to know.
