>> Unless, as with rare beasties like Science Tools, the >> major purpose of the application is to support multiple DBMS >> back-ends, it's just too expensive. Even in those rare cases, it's >> expensive. > > I guess anything you have to pay for is too expensive. (Sounds like dogma > to me. And you know what dogma makes - just don't step in it.) *cough* There really isn't a good argument in general for abstracting out database access to support multiple platforms. The only argument I ever see is: We want our product to support as many databases as possible. Which is certainly a valid business argument but certainly not a good technical argument. > >>> Are there things it misses? Yes, but not much. I'll take the wild >>> guess that more than 80% of applications are completely and >>> adequately served. >> That says something about the applications you've seen, and not about >> the adequacy of such a library. > > That remark is uninformed and arrogantly presumptuous about both me and > the library, and uninsightful regarding the implementation of > applications. It's also needlessly offensive, if you'll forgive the pun. > I am not sure why you would be offended by another's experience. I am offended that you are offended that he wasn't offended. Good lord, take a breath. I would agree that in my experience most applications that choose to abstract their database usage generally make bad choices in how they do it and thus have a negative impact on not only the survivability of existing code but the maintainability of said code. Are their apps out there that do it right? Oh probably, I have never seen one though. > > The short of it is that Science Tools is surely not alone in having > developed an SQL dialect translator, though we may be the only ones to > offer it to customers. Either way, automated dialect translation, whether > by us otherwise, is another useful choice whether _you_ like it or not. useful not always == good. Windows is useful. Windows is not good. Joshua D. Drake > > Ciao, > Richard > -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/