Re: gnome-db 0.2 is ready

[Chris Knight <cknite danville net>]

Can someone *please* respond why in the hell Gnome needs a Gnome
specific DB layer? I don't quite understand this sort of abstraction (or the lack
there of). Nor do I understand this kind of Microsoft idea of tying you to a
particular
implementation for no good reason.

Chris

Michael Lausch wrote:

> It adds iodbc support and therefore another databse driver, the
> postgres ODBC driver.
>
> I was able to connect to a postgres database with this application.
>
> Problems:
>
> 1) Gnome independency of the lower level stuff
>    I don't think this is possible wihtout too much code
>    duplication. The Driver Manager has to access a ini file which is
>    in the infamous MS INI file syntax (same as the gnome ini
>    files). Either write another parser or use the Gnome parser.
>    This ini file shoudl also be editable with a gnome utility, the
>    `gnodbc manager'. Therefore it's the best thing to keep the syntax
>    of the odbc.ini file the same as the other gnome ini files.
>
> 1a) There eixts one function SQLBrowseConnect which opens dialog
>     windows to gather missing parameters for a database access from the
>     user. It would be nice if we could utilize this. The problem is that
>     some of the functionality must even be provided by the real ODBC
>     driver. the driver manager has not enough knowledge to know which
>     parameter is needed by the driver to do the connect.
>
> 1b) The cursor value passing problem. A DB cursor can be a data sink or
>    a data source. In either situation it musr request that data is
>    availebale or that the cursor is able to process further data. This
>    can easily ve implemented using Gtk's signal mechanism. I don't see
>    a reason to reimplement signals or callbacks , only for the sake of
>    being gnome dependent. KDE has it's own ODBC package anyway (C++
>    based).
>
> 2) Wrong SQL operations the query functions for DB metadata shoudl be
>    done using standard ODBC functions, bnot the current wayt (it is ugly,
>    non correct and non portable).
>
> 3) Better layering. The current distribution of functionality between
>    different source files and libraries is a mess. This will be
>    tackled in the next release, so that it's easier to develop the GUI
>    part independent from the other part.
>
> 4) the login widget is a hack gnome-db-login.[ch].
>
> 5) The iodbc licence. iodbc is only GPL, but we need it to be LGPL (i
>    think). I already wrote the owner of iodbc if he's willing to
>    change the licence. If he isn't we have to re-implement iodbc. Not
>    that this is hard, but tedious.
> --
> Michael Lausch/g.a.m.s. edv dienstleistungen gmbh
> See my web page <http://www.gams.net/~mla> or query PGP key server for PGP key.
> "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away".
>                 -- Philip K. Dick