SQLJ vs PLSQL

Question

Hi All,
Does Oracle have a medium to long term policy about which language will be used within the database?
Will SQLJ eventually phase out PLSQL?
I was always a fan of PLSQL, but I have found SQLJ to be equally as good a server based langauge. Coupled with the fact that it can be recompiled against other databases, it should solve the issues that arise when developers are asked to write stored procedure code in PLSQL and Sybase's TransactSQL in the same project.
However, I have noticed that SQLJ has not been accepted by the development community as a well as I would have imagined. I have worked on three projects using SQLJ, however I was responsible for introducing SQLJ in each case.
Friends and colleagues still regard PLSQL as the better language, even though they are using Java in the other tiers within their applications. In many cases, they are not aware of the benefits of SQLJ and are wary of a possible steep learning curve.
I wonder if anyone else has similar ideas/comments on the use of PLSQL and SQLJ, what would you recommend for new project development?
Regards,
Colin Smith

Answer 1

SQLJ and JDBC are ways to access the database - from the client, from the middle tier, or from inside the database server itself.
JDBC is an API specified by Sun as part of Java, while SQLJ is an ANSI (soon ISO) standard for embedding SQL in Java.
JDBC is more widespread, while SQLJ is a more productive environment.
Stored procedures are pieces of code executed in the database as part of your database session. In Oracle Databases, stored procedures are usually written either in PL/SQL (a propertietary Oracle language) or in Java. If you write your stored procedure in Java you use JDBC or SQLJ to access the database - essentially the same code you would write on the client or in a middle-tier.