Re: [gnome-db] more refactoring

[Jean-Michel POURE <jmpoure translationforge com>]

Le Lundi 22 Avril 2002 17:55, Rodrigo Moya a écrit :
> we are using XML for many things, so it makes sense to use it for
> everything that sounds good. So, what are your ideas exactly?

Hi Rodrigo,

Thank you for your answer. I am looking forward to reading the new code. 
libgda seems to be a great tool.

My concern is that RDBMS are **so different** that writing abstraction classes 
is difficult. PostgreSQL, Oracle and IBM DB2 have nice features like, for 
example,  table_space, server-side programming, triggers, performance 
parameters and many extensions.

RDBMS evolve very quickly, offering more and more features (PostgreSQL 6.5.3, 
7.0.3, 7.1, etc...). In libgda, I noticed many features were hard-coded.

Furthermore, a single version of an RDBMS can have different extensions / 
specific installation options. Example: an Oracle 8.1 database might have 
packages, that another 8.1 might not have. My PostgreSQL database supports 
multi-byte, yours does not, etc...

So, my personnal feeling (this is what it is, I don't know the answer yet), is 
that XML could be used internaly (inside the object) to :
- map feature matrix between versions (PostgreSQL 7.1 enables function alter, 
PostgreSQL 7.0 does not, etc...),
- map feature matrix for each database (my database has a Python language, 
your database does not).

Utimately, we need real inheritance AND xml.
What do you think?

Cheers,
Jean-Michel