Re: ODBC Driver Manager Questions

[Murray Todd Williams <murray verinet com>]

> Yes, that's what I thought, specially since, as I've seen, people tend to use the
> PostgreSQL/oracle/MySQL providers instead of the ODBC one. But it was provided so
> that people without a database on their systems could run gnome-db.

Another nice thing is that it adds a certain completeness to have the Gnome-DB
integrated with a more "traditional/classical" database manager/library such as
ODBC.  That way, Gnome-DB satisfies all your database needs.

> > I would like (if there are no objections) to see if Gnome-DB and unixODBC
> > would be interested in working in conjunction so that they fit together
> > seamlessly.  I would write the Gnome-based OBDC Driver Administrator controls
> > and help determine how it can best fit in with Gnome-DB.
> >
>
> No objections at all from my part. I think the best way is to do what I said in
> my previous message: to have a widget implementing all the configuration, so that
> in the gnome-odbc manager, or gnome-db's gda-mgr just have to act as containers
> for these widgets.

Right.  Since this is going to be my first Gnome/GTK+ app, I'll just start with a
straight application and rework everything as I figure the whole architecture out.
Eventually I'll find myself at the top of the learning curve and we'll have
everything smoothly integrated.

> > I think at the moment I'll pass on that piece.  I'm really trying to make sure
> > I don't bite off more I can chew with the Gnome ODBC Driver Administrator
> > piece.  I don't have the bandwidth at the moment to learn the inner-workings
> > of Gnome-DB.  (Mostly I'm terrified whenever someone mentions CORBA because I
> > get the impression it's really complicated.)
> >
>
> Ok, the driver manager looks very good to me. But I must say that all the
> template files I'm talking about are there to hide all the CORBA stuff, so it
> shouldn't be too hard.

One learning curve at a time.  If progress goes better than I expected and nobody's
done anything with the provider, I'll give it a shot.  Until then, I want to focus
on things I know I can pull off.

> > I'd be happy to try and help write a similar "widget" for the ODBC provider.
> > In that case I really suggest Gnome-DB chooses unixODBC for a Driver Manager
> > because of the driver management and data-source management libraries that I
> > described earlier.  Plus, Nick Gorham (again, the unixODBC person) is really
> > really responsive about making changes and alterations and fixes with
> > unixODBC.  If you choose iODBC instead you'll be reinventing the wheel.  (And
> > taking time away from the more Gnome-DB-centric work that I suspect you are
> > all interested in doing.)
>
> As you said, iODBC does not provide the ODBC setup libs, right? so we'll build
> this component in gnome-db only if unixODBC is present on the system. The ODBC
> provider could still be built with both.

We could make a very basic component that only asked for a datasource name and
*assumed* the user already configured the ODBC driver manager.

> > What might be fair would be to let Nick and me work on a full-featured
> > unixODBC provider component (along with the widget goodies, etc.) and make an
> > iODBC provider that would assume iODBC was already installed (to be fair for
> > people with pre-existing iODBC installations) that would skip the driver
> > administration components, simply allow you to choose a datasource, and let
> > the burden of datasource configuration rest with the user.  The unixODBC RPM
> > and iODBC RPM could simply keep a "conflict" note in the spec file so both
> > were installed on the system.  Is any of this making sense?
>
> Do you think it's a good solution to provide 2 gnome-db ODBC providers (1 for
> iODBC another for unixODBC), instead of making only one (with #ifdef's for any
> psossible difference in code)? If so, go on,  but remember to use the templates
> in gda-dev/templates.

My rule of thumb would be do whatever can ultimately be reduced to simple RPM
components.  In the end we want users to have the easiest time figuring what's
needed.

> A question: where can I download unixODBC?

http://www.unixODBC.org

Murray