[Seaside] RDB access (was: Rolling with Ruby on Rails vs. Seaside)

[Todd Blanchard]

I'm curious how did ruby get such good db coverage?  Is it just using 
odbc?

On Jan 29, 2005, at 12:05 PM, Milan Zimmermann wrote:

> On January 29, 2005 05:19 am, danil a. osipchuk wrote:
>>> I've not tried Glorp on Squeak, but IIUC it deals directly with
>>> the PostgreSQL client. It would seem to be a simple matter [:)]
>>> to agree on a common RDB access layer (now that there are connections
>>> for MySQL and ODBC) and change Glorp to use it. We might even want
>>> this layer to be portable across Smalltalks as well.
>>>
>>> I may take this on (the common RDB layer, not tweaking Glorp),
>>> since I may need to access some data on Sybase (I hope ODBC will
>>> work for it).
>>>
>>> --yanni
>>
>> I think what Squeak really lacks of - is proper ODBC client (not FFI
>> one, with blocking, etc).
>
> I agree, it seems essential for acceptance in the large business 
> (=money) to
> have relational db-independent access API similar to JDBC (I guess 
> that's
> what Yanni means by "common RDB layer"). The first implementation 
> would start
> either through a "ODBC-bridge" or even "JDBC-bridge". I do not know 
> how the
> Squeak ODBC access layer works now, but it would have to be proper
> non-blocking implementation. Later implementations could be "pure 
> Squeak" or
> better "pure Smalltalk" implementations similar to level-4 JDBC "pure 
> Java"
> drivers.
>
> Two comments regarding a "db-independent" relational database access 
> API and
> initial implementation:
> 	
> 	- The existence of JDBC literally saved Java's butt in the late90's 
> where it
> managed to establish itself on the server when Microsoft blocked it 
> from the
> client.
>
> 	- In 2 of my  Java contracts (for one company - software for 
> insurance,
> medical insurance, banks. The other - software for medical practices) 
> the
> ability to switch the application between relational databases is 
> absolutely
> essential. Such big industries often tell you "we buy this software 
> only if
> it runs on Oracle (or DB2 or SQL Server etc). With good JDBC drivers, 
> such
> switch take virtually no time - change the URL, the driver class, and 
> off you
> go, with a few differences when accessing BLOBs. So it seems such 
> layer would
> bring Squeak to the next level of aceptance and allowed more people to 
> make
> living of Squeak, but as usually, this is an chicken and egg problem 
> ...
> (unless some big company such as HP does not sponsor such effort, that 
> would
> be nice :) )
>
> (I hope you do not take this as me advocating Java, just drawing 
> parallels, as
> this started as discussion of Ruby Rail )
>
> Thanks Milan
>
>> It seems that squeak community is not strong
>> enougth to build all variety of database clients right now (like it 
>> was
>> done for VW). But just one ODBC client would be sufficient in most 
>> cases
>> and also could play a role of common rdb layer (like in Dolphin). 
>> With a
>> help of knowlegable people I can try to do it myself ( or may be
>> somebody more experienced can). The questions are - should odbc client
>> be implemeted natively or using plugins, and where can one get
>> specification and docs on odbc protocol
>>
>> danil
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>
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