Hi
Why is there so little build in functions in Firebird? Would it not be
better to spent some time adding more usefull functions rather that have
to rely on third party UDF's.

UDF's in my opinion is problamatic because they need to be thread safe
and it normally binds you to a specific platformor two at most. If I
remember correctly this opinion about UDF's is shared by some of the
developers albe'it for different reasons. If one could develop a
reliable "build in library" of functions then most UDF's would not be
needed.

This would also bring us up to par with other open source db's in terms
of the number of build in functionality.

If there is a good reason why there is not build in functions please
enlighten me.

Groete
Gerhardus