> Easy sharding, a la Elasticsearch
Oracle RAC lets you add nodes to the cluster. Helps with CPU - doesn't really help with disk contention
> Fucking SQL. If I want a new feature, then dammit, build on top of SQL the way PostgreSQL has.
There is no good story here for Oracle. Postgres is amazing (and has the potential for more amazing) here. I'm surprised the legions of NoSQL developers aren't contributing to psql.
> For example, I want to make a materialized view that's the result of a query, but that gets updated as new rows get inserted or as the rows it uses gets updated. Let's call it a continuous view or something. Eventual consistency is fine.
This is how (certain) [1] Oracle Materialised Views already work (.. with some effort..) unless I've misunderstood you.
But you have to:
1. Define "logs" on all the included tables (observables)
2. Only define certain types of queries, otherwise they won't dynamically update
3. If not 2, then schedule the updates on a timer/job (eventually consistent)
4. Write your joins with the old syntax (WHERE A.fieldd = (+) B.field)
> I want to be able to choose if a table/db is always in memory or not. I don't care about individual rows - that sounds like someone else's problem
Oracle's In memory feature[0] supposedly offers this though I haven't had a chance to get at it yet.
> While I'm at it, I want a pony, too.
If you've got the money to pay for all the Oracle gear above, then you have more than enough money for a few Ponies ;)
[0] http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/database-in-memo...
[1] https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/server.111/b28286/state...