>> Unless, as with rare beasties like Science Tools, the
>> major purpose of the application is to support multiple DBMS
>> back-ends, it's just too expensive. Even in those rare cases, it's
>> expensive.
>
> I guess anything you have to pay for is too expensive. (Sounds like dogma
> to me. And you know what dogma makes - just don't step in it.)
*cough* There really isn't a good argument in general for abstracting
out database access to support multiple platforms.
The only argument I ever see is:
We want our product to support as many databases as possible. Which is
certainly a valid business argument but certainly not a good technical
argument.
>
>>> Are there things it misses? Yes, but not much. I'll take the wild
>>> guess that more than 80% of applications are completely and
>>> adequately served.
>> That says something about the applications you've seen, and not about
>> the adequacy of such a library.
>
> That remark is uninformed and arrogantly presumptuous about both me and
> the library, and uninsightful regarding the implementation of
> applications. It's also needlessly offensive, if you'll forgive the pun.
>
I am not sure why you would be offended by another's experience. I am
offended that you are offended that he wasn't offended. Good lord, take
a breath.
I would agree that in my experience most applications that choose to
abstract their database usage generally make bad choices in how they do
it and thus have a negative impact on not only the survivability of
existing code but the maintainability of said code.
Are their apps out there that do it right? Oh probably, I have never
seen one though.
>
> The short of it is that Science Tools is surely not alone in having
> developed an SQL dialect translator, though we may be the only ones to
> offer it to customers. Either way, automated dialect translation, whether
> by us otherwise, is another useful choice whether _you_ like it or not.
useful not always == good.
Windows is useful.
Windows is not good.
Joshua D. Drake
>
> Ciao,
> Richard
>
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