Re: Question about gnome-db...

[Rodrigo Moya <rmoya tsai es>]

Hi!


> Hello,
>
> I wondered something...
>
> I do know that Gnumeric intends to be the exact replic of MS Excel. What
> I would like to know is : Is it also the case for gnome-db, to behave
> the most like MS Access ?
>

I didn't have in mind Access when I started on gnome-db (in fact, I've used
Access only 3 or 4 time in my life, so I don't know too much about it so
that to start an app based on it), I did have T.O.A.D. (www.toadsoft.com) in
mind, which is a splendid tool for accessing oracle databases. It lets you
do everything you can from a single app, so I thought on doing the same for
PostgreSQL, but then I found that it won't be too difficult to provide a
sort of framework (shared libraries was the first attempt) for accessing
different database systems. Then, I got in touch with Michael Lausch (don't
know his current email address), who had started the gnome-db project by
then (CORBA-based and very similar to what gnome-db is today). So I joined
him and included my SQL front-end app (= today's gdafe app) in the suite.
Then, we started the UI library and now we are developing a development
framework for building things such as servers, clients, services...

[Services: what do all of you think of including something like an app
server in the development framework? That is, you will be able to create a
client app which makes calls to services on the app server, which in turn
access a database through the gnome-db API. This will allow to build 3-tier
applications, with a client part, a sort of RPC server (CORBA servers) part,
and a database access part, very well suited for internet-oriented apps for
example]

I guess you ask this because you want some sort of compatibility with your
Access databases, am I right? For Access compatibility, you have two
choices: find an Access ODBC driver for Linux, since the gda-odbc-server
already works, so you may run it out-of-the-box, or write a gda server for
accessing Access files.

>
> I don't want to discuss the principle. Just to know if yes or no. It is
> very important for me.
>
> After reading documentation about gnome-db, I can say that the goal is
> to be a "frontend" to database engine.
> Access is more than that because is does the indexation and so on
> (poorly, but...)
>
> After having gnome-db correctly installed and working, I might be
> interested very well by helping the project in this direction, if it is
> the case.
>

Great! You may find interesting to write the Access server...

>
> Designing an abstract layer for database design is very difficult,
> because all db engines doesn't support the same function. For example
> MySQL doesn't support transaction (so we have to implement them).

That's one thing I forgot to include in the TODO list: add transaction
support to databases that do not support them, and MySQL is one of them.