Re: [gnome-db]Access-like prkect

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org>]

> 
> >>>>I'm working on a presentation about data access and data access
> >>>>tools for the Linux platform,  you can find it at -
> >>>>http://www.kalamazoolinux.org/presentations/pdf/dbaccess-v6.pdf
> >>>>You may (or may not) find it useful,  but if you look at it I'd
> >>>>appreciate any comments.  Some parts are already obselete (OSS
> >>>>developement never seems to let up :), and others aren't complete
> >>>>yet. It is best if you use xpdf so you can rotate it right,  as
> >>>>ps2pdf seems to only make portrait documents.
> >>>very nice! 
> >>Thanks.
> >>>Would you mind if I put a link to that document in the
> >>>GNOME-DB site. I think it explains very well the whole architecture,
> >>>so it 
> >>Wow!  So I might even be close to understanding all this stuff?! :)
> >yes, you are :-)
> >>>might be very nice to have it available.
> >>I probably need to check with the company (Armstrong International)
> >>that hosts the LUG website (for free) out of courtesy,  but I don't expect 
> >>that linking to it would be a problem.
> >ok, let me now if I can do it, and I'll add the link as soon as you tell
> >me so
> 
> Ok, please link to -
> ftp://kalamazoolinux.org/pub/pdf/dbaccess.pdf
> 
> I'll replace this with newer versions as I go.
> 
ok, great, I'll add the link later

> To anyone who cares the problems/mistakes in it so far are:
> 1. The version of unixODBC is old, the text driver now has a GUI setup module
> which is a major change.
> 2. As of 0.68 Gnumeric now seems to ship with Bonobo enabled and with GDA as a
> plugin, but I need to confirm this.  The presentation states the opposite.
>
it comes with Bonobo enabled, but I'm not sure the binary packages come
with GDA
support enabled. I just checked in my system (Debian woody), and the
binaries I use (the ones made by Akira) do include GDA support, but I'm
not sure about the "official" binaries (if there are)
 
> I intend to include/add the following items:
> 1. Using "proprietary" UNIX platform ODBC drivers such as those for Informix,
> DB2, and Oracle.  And hopefully how to ties these drivers into unixODBC.
> 2. Compiling PHP to support unixODBC and a simple code example.
> 3. Mention of libodbc++ for using ODBC in C++
> 4. GNOME-DB dependency information.
>
Remember that libgda is now also based on libbonobo (the non-UI part).
For the moment, this is another library added to the already-needed GTK,
but for GNOME 2.0, it will mean libgda integrates perfectly well with
Bonobo apps, and all X dependencies (GTK, etc) will be removed, and
libgda will "only" depend on ORBit, libxml2, OAF, glib and libbonobo

> 5. GNOME-DB widgets available in GLADE
> 6. A simple example of a GNOME-DB program,  probably stolen from the testing
> directory (it worked out-of-the-box for me).
>
send all congratulations/presents/etc to Brian :-)

> 7. More information on gASQL.
>
yes, I think gASQL should have a bit more attention (if it does not have
yet), since it's a great program, and a very good example of using
libgda/gnome-db, so it fits into your presentation, I think.

> 8. Mention of GNUe
> 
> If anyone can think of something else they think would be good to include please
> let me know.  And since I'm at it I do have a few "general" questions:
> 
> 1. There was rumblings about a GDA binding for PHP.  Did anything ever happen
> with this?
>
Cleber was going to work on it, but, AFAIK, he hasn't started yet

> 2. Will things like XML queries work for non-SQL data stores like LDAP and mail?
>
yes, that's the intention. I am finishing a couple of things and then
I'll start using the XML queries stuff, and one of the first things I've
got in mind is to finish one of the already started non-SQL providers
(LDAP, mail, etc) using the XML queries

> 3. Will the migration from generic-corba-gda to bonobized-gda change the API and
> break current applications?
>
not at all. The change is already there, and the API has remained the
same. We will break a bit the API (just a little bit) specially to
remove obsolete stuff (such as the CORBA_ORB parameter in the call to
gda_connection_new), but nothing very important

> 4. Is anyone thinking about a GDA backend for GNUe?
>
I think that was the intention of the GNUe people, but, AFAIK, they're
not anymore between us (I mean in the list, of course) :-(, so their
plans may have changed to not use libgda at all. Or maybe they're
waiting until the GLib 2.0-based libgda.

The best thing would be to ask them (gnue gnue org)
 
> Also... (why not just ask for everything)...  I'd really appreciate it if:
> 
> 1. Someone could build gASQL RPMs with the current version of gnome-db.  It is
> giving me fits.
>
we've got even problems to build gnome-db/libgda RPMS, since most of us
are using Debian, and my experience in building RPMs in Debian was not
very good (different library versions, etc), so... It would be really
good if we integrated some gnome-db/libgda based packages into our
package building system. This will include gnumeric (already available
for Debian in Akira's apt source), glade, gASQL. I think it would be
great for people to have packages for all these programs with gnome-db
enabled.

I'm going to add some entries in bugzilla about this, just in case
somebody wants to work on it. But, basically, it would mean:

* build RPMs for all those packages, since AFAIK, all of those have a
spec file as part of the distribution
* add debian support and build packages. This is done, since Akira has
been doing packages for most of the GNOME CVS for a while now. What we
could do is to also add those packages to ftp.gnome-db.org, so that
they're easily available. It misses only gASQL :-(

> 2. Explain the "Batch" option in gnomedb-fe,  maybe I'm overlooking the obvious,
> I can't seem to get it to do anything.
> 
it does nothing. In fact, I disabled it some time ago, but can't
remember if it came to the last release. In CVS it's disabled for sure.
It is supposed to allow the execution of SQL scripts (or XML files with
several queries), but I wasn't happy with the UI, so I stopped its
development. It would be great if somebody could tell me some ideas
about a UI for this kind of stuff

cheers
--
Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org> - <rodrigo ximian com>
http://www.gnome-db.org/ - http://www.ximian.com/