Salutations

[David Merrill]

On Sat, Dec 09, 2000 at 05:00:20PM -0600, Rob Browning wrote:
> Steve Greenland <steveg@moregruel.net> writes:
> 
> > I'm not trying to start a religious war, but at the moment, MySQL
> > doesn't support transactions, which I see as one of the big gains in
> > moving from (or supporting in addition to) the current file based
> > system. Yes, one can implement transactions "on-top-of", but then you
> > might as well stick with the file system.
> > 
> > Of course, the Right Thing is to be DB independent, but you probably
> > need to have some sort of "pre-test" to make sure the configured DB
> > supports all the necessary functionality.
> 
> Well, my little knowledge tends to make me favor PostreSQL too, but
> I'd be happy to defer to people with more knowledge, and as you point
> out, one question we need to address is whether we want to be LCD
> (Least Common Denominator), or whether or not we are willing, if even
> for the short term, to commit ourselves to a particular DB in exchange
> for enhanced functionality...

We *are* going to wind up with some kind of Least Common Denominator
based on our requirements, and I suspect that support for transactions
will be among them. If that happens, MySQL is out. If we can find ways
to do what we need to do without support for transactions, that would
be good, though. I'd hate to not support MySQL since so many people
use it. I also am not interested in religious wars.

We should keep in mind that it may take some time to get a production
release out with SQL support, and MySQL is working on transaction
support right now.

I tried checking out gnome-db, but their site was down this afternoon.
Has anyone here actually worked with gnome-db, or any other database
abstraction library?
 
> As long as it's a free DB, it's not as huge a deal to exclusively
> support just that one, since anyone can install it (and we can include
> it if needed), but it's still not as flexible as allowing the user to
> use the DB they've already deployed, and as we move into the
> small-business arena, allowing people to stick data in *their* DB will
> probably become more critical.  Though, even there, as long as we have
> ways to interface with other DBs (i.e. batch push/pull) that may make
> most people happy.

True, taking the expense of installing the db changes the equation.
The project I last worked on that required extensive multiple
database support was for exactly that reason.

-- 
Dr. David C. Merrill                     http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project                dmerrill@lupercalia.net
Collection Editor & Coordinator            http://www.linuxdoc.org
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Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab:
	Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined.