>>>for an article I will write, I would like to get an impression on
>
> what
>
>>>people think are the most 7 valuable new features in Firebird 2.0
>
> based
>
>>>on the currently available Alpha 3.
>>
>>Fixing indexes so garbage collecting records that participate in long
>>index duplicate chains is fast.
>
>
> I agree, the new ODS changes for indexing ROCK!!!

Fully agree! Beside the ODS change in general (new index structures,
max. index length much higher, expression index, raised exception
message length, RDB$DESCRIPTION fields for other database objects, ...),
the following are on top of my "most valuable" list:

- Non-exclusive access when creating FOREIGN KEYs
- New database shutdown modes
- Sequence and new cursor syntax
- User-definable context variables (way cool!!!)
- Optimizer and buffer cache improvements
- Derived tables (how did I missed them when coming from Oracle)
- New INTL interface
- And, and, and ...

GREAT WORK guys! ;-)


Regards,
Thomas