Alphora's Dataphor (http://www.alphora.com/tiern.asp?ID=DATAPHOR2) is
probably the best, cleanest and most elegant DBMS when it comes to
data types even compared to Postgres, both from a conceptual and an
implementation point of view. Even their "pluggable engine"
implementation is way better than MySQL and from what I've read so
far, better than Vulcan.

The greatest problem with Dataphor is that it is .NET only (requiring
VS just to install) and that it still doesnt have a native, disk-based
storage device. They run in-memory and off of 3rd party SQL devices
such as MS SQL Server and Oracle fine though. Support for Firebird as
an SQL device would be a treat.

IMHO, Firebird in the future could take more than a few pages from
Dataphor's book. For me its just a question of how and when.

--- In Firebird-Architect@yahoogroups.com, Jim Starkey <jas@n...> wrote:
>
> unordained wrote:
>
> >I know there's been talk of external functions, java VM's,
namespaces, etc., but how much talk has
> >there been about what a type system should look like in a good
RDBMS? About what the term "domain"
> >really means? Wouldn't the developer you task with adding
geospatial datatypes find it more
> >rewarding to open Firebird up to 3rd party datatype plugin
development than to implement a single,
> >complicated datatype in the current code?
> >
> >
> >
> Do you have something you'd like to propose?
>
> --
>
> Jim Starkey
> Netfrastructure, Inc.
> 978 526-1376
>