I've just released extproc_perl version 1.99_08. Most of the changes are the result of user input, so there should be much joy in userland. Now I just have to get 2.0 out the door before YAPC.
http://www.smashing.org/extproc_perl
Re:How stable? How fast?
jhorwitz on 2004-04-12T20:42:40
*impopular*?:-) PL/SQL tends to be faster when using its builtin operations. However, Perl is infinitely more flexible, and the availability of CPAN modules make it a winner when it comes to functionality. Once Perl is parsed and compiled, it's pretty fast. Actual speed really depends on what you're doing and how often you do it. The number one bottleneck is interpreter initialization (see mod_perl), but that's a one-time hit especially if you're using app server connection pools or Apache::DBI. And if you're just running something once to process some data, then you probably won't notice the initialization too much.
After the initialization, your code will run as fast as Perl can run. All of the communication between Oracle and extproc_perl is done via Oracle's IPC mechanisms, which are blazingly fast. The only slowdown you'll see is during operations that are normally parallelized, such as index creation -- Oracle's external procedures are currently single-threaded, so we're kinda stuck there.
Yikes, that was a mouthful. FYI, I'll be presenting all this stuff in excruciating detail at YAPC::NA this year.
