Re: ODBC driver for Windows & future...

Richard Huxton wrote:

> AFAIK no substantial changes have been made in the ODBC driver
> recently. Dave generously stepped forward to look after the project
> until a lead developer came forward. We're still waiting for that
> person to come forward.

Hi,

I just wanted to chip in with a slightly irrelevant info.

Those who don't know me - I'm the CEO of Lingnu Open Source Consulting
(http://www.lingnu.com). We are the ones who wrote the OLE DB provider
for Postgresql (http://gborg.postgresql.org/projects/oledb). It was done
as a payed job by a client who needed OLE DB support. While not
complete, it is already working fairly well.

More to the point, OLE DB uses libpq as a backend. While this did save
us from rewriting the protocol (we started work after 7.4 was already
out, so protocol versions was not an issue), it did introduce some
points that had better be considered. As far as I know, OLE DB is the
only driver currently using libpq. Some aspects of memory allocation and
thread safety make it a little difficult to scale further reliably.
These are not crucial problems, but they are things to consider when
developing a driver (as opposed to an end application).

Also of interest is that this very same client is also interested in the
ODBC driver for a different project. We have already did some porting of
their application, and have spotted a serious performance issue with
ODBC when long query results are retrieved. It is possible (thought it
would be best not to count on it) that we will do some work in that
direction on ODBC in the foreseeable future. The reason we did not step
forward and offered ourselves as full maintainers of the code is that we
don't feel we have the resources for that. It is good to know, however,
that the facilities for sending patches and having them committed exists.

>> On Windows platforms ODBC will remain the default method to quickly
>> link a Database with any number of applications for some time to
>> come.
>
>
> The central problem is that none of us have the skills and/or time to
> build/maintain an ODBC driver even though we'd all like to see
> updates. There are three options I can see possible:
> 1. Someone steps up and takes over development as before

Like I said, that is unlikely to be us, unless we get paid for it. It
seems we are going to be learning at least some of the code (and have
submitted a modest patch in the past, in fact). If someone with more
ODBC experience exists, however, I think it would be best to let them do
this task. We are maintaining OLE DB already, and do not really seek the
position of "master of Postgresql drivers".

> 2. Increased use by Windows users leads to a Windows developer to step
> forward and go to #1

That's how free software usually works.

> 3. The ODBC driver is replaced with a wrapper to another driver
> (JDBC/.Net) hopefully reducing the maintenance requirements.

Now I don't know JDBC and .Net very well. If they are anything like OLE
DB, that's not going to be a simple one. The interfaces are fairly
incompatible.

> There is an ODBC=>JDBC gateway out there (closed-source I believe) but
> I don't know of a .Net one.

       Shachar

P.S.
While I won't claim that the OLE DB driver is as complete as the JDBC or
.Net ones (or the ODBC one, while we're at it), I'd just like to make
sure that the reason it wasn't mentioned was this rather than ignorance.

    Sh.

--
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting ltd.
http://www.lingnu.com/