Get PostgreSQL installed as part of the distros

[Lars Pind]

Alesh-

Actually, we haven't planned on addressing this, since we're not in the =
business of providing end-user support. Rather, we rely on people either =
learning how to maintain things themselves or hiring someone who knows. =
But then again, our toolkit is not aimed at end-users, it's aimed at =
developers who want to build web applications.

What we're after is to make it easy to get our software installed and =
start playing around with it, without any need to learn anything to get =
the first page served. I'd hope that the PosgreSQL group would do their =
best to make maintenance easy.

Btw, speaking of interchangeable RBMS's, that path is unfortunately not =
possible for us. The differences between different RDBMS products are =
too large for us to even try that. We rely heavily on procedural =
programming in the database. Also, the differences in areas like outer =
joins, referential integrity, object-relational features, the handling =
of long strings and maximum key lengths, just to name a few, make it =
difficult to use one database as a drop-in replacement for another. =
Porting to a new DB is far from a mechanical process. It requires =
ingenuity in coming up with workarounds for the deficiencies of one =
RDBMS vis-a-vis another, and generally requires that our entire =
datamodel is rewritten.

/Lars

----- Original Message -----=20
From: "Alesh Mustar" <alesh@jpdesign.net>
To: "Lars Pind" <lars@pinds.com>
Cc: <gnucash-devel@lists.gnumatic.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2000 4:47 AM
Subject: Re: Get PostgreSQL installed as part of the distros


> Lars,
>=20
> you opened this question yourself in the first part of your email, how
> will user maintain it? Beside default installs in distributions, any =
plans
> on solving this question?
>=20
> Alesh
>=20
> On Fri, 20 Oct 2000, Lars Pind wrote:
>=20
> > Hi Gnucash-people
> >=20
> > I witnessed a talk by Linas at the NYLUG meeting this past =
Wednesday, and there was some talk about using PostgreSQL as a back-end =
storage for GNUCash.
> >=20
> > Linas said that one of the major obstacles would be the support =
issue -- stepping people through installing and setting up PostgreSQL, =
not to speak of maintaining it.
> >=20
> > We at ArsDigta/OpenACS (arsdigita.com, openacs.org) are in a similar =
situation. We're about to get our product, ACS, included on RedHat and a =
number of other distros, but we depend on a running PostgreSQL =
installation. So far, we've planned on installing and setting up =
PostgreSQL ourselves, with some RPM and shell script magic.=20
> >=20
> > But Linas' talk sparked this idea: Wouldn't it be a lot more clever =
if we could convince the distros to make a running, configured =
PostgreSQL installation part of the default install, for the benefit of =
all? Application developers could then start relying on a working =
PostgreSQL installation, so they could concentrate on adding value =
instead.
> >=20
> > We're already trying to use our influence to make this happen, but =
the more the merrier.=20
> >=20
> > I'd like to hear how interested you would be in this, if we could =
make it happen.
> >=20
> > Thanks,
> > /Lars
> >=20
> >=20
> >=20
> > _______________________________________________
> > gnucash-devel mailing list
> > gnucash-devel@lists.gnumatic.com
> > http://www.gnumatic.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
> >=20
>=20
>=20