On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 11:12, David Forslund wrote: > Not really, as most of these features are supported by some of the > available (open source) > mapping tools, so that you don't have to do this yourself and can maintain > DBMS portability. > Some of these features as being non-standard create problems of > portability, but most of them > are accommodated by Object-Relational mapping tools.
Portability is a means to an end and not a goal in itself.
Basically I agree, but people have strong feelings about DBMS and sometimes
have big investments. If they want to use Oracle, it is fine with me. So portability
is important for adoption of technology. I haven't used PostgresSQL, because
the implementation windows is not great, being based on cygwin rather than being native.
I must be able to run transparently on windows. MySQL provides that capability
with great scalability, too.
PostgreSQL is free, runs on most known platforms from my handheld (Sharp Zaurus) to mainframes. Chosing PostgreSQL and using PostgreSQL specific features thus does not impose any undue restrictions on end users.
Object relational mapping is computing intensive. Sometimes this doesn't matter, but when you already have native support by your backend for features you deem necessary, it would be unwise to abstract these features out into a middleware, where you just create new points of failure and dependency problems.
If things are working, I wouldn't change them for no good reason. I like not having to rely on a single vendor at any given level of my software. The middleware layer makes my code less dependent on vagaries of any give software supplier and makes sure that their code doesn't creep to far into my code, by having a well defined interface. The middleware aspect is very thin (compared to my CORBA layers between major components).
The issues you were discussing are issues that are really independent of most DBMS and I've found that it works well to treat them that way. Your mileage may vary, of course. Just a suggestion.
Dave
Horst -- "On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage
