Alexandre Benson Smith wrote:

>But I disagree since it is already available (ok, with dependencies in
>3rd party utils) and the time/effort needed to implement something a
>"bit" better that what we already have could be spent in another feature.
>
>

It is less trouble for us to write and maintain a single scheduler than
for a Windows user to hunt down, install, learn, and configure a third
party cron. I, for own, have written an internal database task schedule
but have yet to figure how cron work on Windows.

I detest products that require other products to be installed to use
them. That is the sort of things that causes users to remove installed
evaluation copies and resume looking for databases.

>I don't object to have it inside the engine but what will be the
>priority ? What do FB developers has in the todo list that has a hight
>priority ? How dificult will be ?
>
>

That will be up to whatever Firebird developer decides it's worth
doing. If there isn't one, it won't happen. Personally, I think it is
wonderful that a dozen Netfrastructure applications back themselves up
early every more and, as is almost always the case, prunes set of old
backups to an establsihed date. I'm not very good at doing regular
backups, so having friendly software that does really boring, thankless,
but important chores is wonderful.

I'm a strong proponent of active database, which is why you have
triggers and events and lots of other good stuff. An internal scheduler
is just the logical extension to were Firebird was going long before it
was Firebird.

>
>
>>
>>
>As I understand it will be a scheduler to run Stored Procedures, so we
>will have a SQL command to do backups ?
>
>

I doubt we will ever have a SQL command to do backups. But a procedure
that could invoke a library function is a different question.

>With Java Stored Procedures the things will be really interesting, but
>with the current PSQL no way to send e-mail, no way to interact with non
>FB objects (files, system logs, ftp and so on).
>
>

That's an argument in favor of Java procedures and triggers, not an
argument against a scheduler. I've never liked PSQL and look forward to
using a civilized language at the earliest possible opportunity.