Hi Merlin, as I tried to explain, I do not need just to send some sql to postgres, I am working at an higher level of abstraction, where I need the information (that must be) provided by (any) OleDb Provider > in my opinion the support for the npgsql driver is ok (not great). It > is much better than the oledb provider however. No doubt about that, but this is irrelevant for my purposes. > > In general when you have an application that needs to speak to all > > possible DBMS (and there are many, such as Reporting Tools or Query > > builders, ...), and hence rely strictly on the OleDb information, the > > OleDb is the only way to go (I believe). > > I have used basically every version of visual studio and have found > that in most cases for most uses, you will be best off with the oledb > provider for odbc drivers if you want to use such tools. Second > choice (.net only) is to use npgsql driver and typed datasets. I am NOT talking of "the oledb provider for odbc drivers": I never used it either. > > That's one of the reason of the popularity OleDb providers are gaining > > among programmers. > > ODBC is much more important standard than oledb. Here we have different opinions. I could show you a lot of things you cannot do without the OleDb functionalities, at least if you want to talk to all dbms at the same time. > True, but oledb is basically microsoft only protocol while odbc is > essentially open standard. Personally, I don't mind using specific > providers. For example, at least 50% of my development is directly > over libpq library. Nowadays every producer must have its OleDb provider. It's not an option. Moreless, like for me it not an option to write a program that does not use web services or isn't web enabled. Of course I could disregard that part. But that I would lose about 90% of my potential users (or clients). > > > It is important that the Postgres people realize that a good OleDb > > provided is crucial to spread their product. Just as an example I am > > just waiting for their fix to provide support to Postgres users in one > > project of mine: > > > > http://cam70.sta.uniroma1.it/Community/ > > > > and this will certainly contribute to increase (a little) the > > popularity of Postgress. (But I cannot do anything to help them if they > > don't fix it.) > You know, Merlin, sometimes people perpective are just different because they come from different experiences and environment. It's not matter to be right or wrong. In my experience, it is crucial the possibility to rely on the high level information provided by the OleDb protocol, because it allows to have a unique interface for any dbms in the world and to have a unique way to do things (apart the slight differences in sql dialects). This allows easy system integration. If you see for intance how DataTime works, retrieving dbms structure talking with any dbms and easily moving data from one to another, it will be clear what I mean. If I should write code that depends on the underlying DBMS, maintenance would just be impossibile and programming a real hell (it's already a hell the way it is now :) ! ) General standards have always prevailed. It's just matter of time. un caro saluto, Tommaso
