Common prefix skipping, adaptive sort

http://smalldatum.blogspot.com/2026/01/common-prefix-skipping-adaptive-sort.html

44 8 17 days ago

smalldatum.blogspot.com

Oracle's claims about speed-ups of their database are just that, claims. Their licenses explicitly disallow benchmarking, so basically we are legally bound to rely on their word.

masklinn3• 13 days ago

TFA is a post by the author of the algorithm, talking about the performance they originally predicted and later observed after implementing it while they were working at oracle, now that the patent has expired and anyone can implement the algorithm.

So:

- you are calling them a liar

- and are asserting you can not evaluate the claim even though you can implement and benchmark the algorithm in whatever DBMS you favour

stratocumulus03• 13 days ago

I can evaluate the claim now, but I would not have been able to evaluate the speed gain of an Oracle database using whatever proprietary implementation they are using. Claiming I've called author anything is putting words in my mouth.

Veserv• 13 days ago

Claims do not support themselves. The claim is unsupported by evidence and thus the burden of proof is on them or you to produce that evidence.

As the author and implementer of the algorithm allegedly prepared, ran, and analyzed benchmarks they obviously, by far, have the easiest time producing the evidence for their claim. Your argument that the poster needs to go read, implement, integrate, and benchmark the algorithm to to generate evidence to counter the absence of evidence for the claim is ridiculous. It would be as easy as 1-2-3 for the author to present their evidence to meet their burden of proof, yet you are demanding a extraordinary level of effort by the poster to present evidence against when they do not even have the burden of proof.

This is further ridiculous because the author or you would merely need to support the positive claim, where as you are demanding the poster demonstrate the negative, and all this before there is any evidence.

You should really stop with the unnecessarily combative tone when your entire model of argumentation is completely backwards in every respect.

hans_castorp• 13 days ago

Their license only disallows publishing the result of a benchmark

But you were always allowed to run your own benchmarks internally.

Back then, you could have installed 10gR1 and 10gR2 and compare the sort performance on identical data sets and queries.

Common prefix skipping, adaptive sort

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