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Re: db interface (was Re: Scheme is too complicated)


Jim Blandy <jimb@red-bean.com> writes:

> > For a practical scripting language, you don't need "best".
> 
> Okay, this is not so cool.  I don't see any reason to embrace sloppy
> interfaces, just because we're an interpreter.  Sometimes people do
> want to get something exactly right, even in scripts.

I'm not saying you shouldn't go for "good", or even "as good as you
can make it", but from a practical engineering viewpoint, "now" is of
value, especially when accompanied by "pretty good", and "useful".

But basically we all agree, I think.  The DBI people have been
thinking about this for a while, and they have something which they
feel works, so it makes lots of sense to look at that before starting
to think from scratch.  

(Especially since the details of some of this varies from database to
database---if you design an interface for a database which doesn't
allow precompiled queries, then that's not going to be so efficient on
a database which does.)

Having said that, the last time I used DBI, it didn't seem too clean
to me.  Perhaps such messiness is required, but perhaps more radical
rethinking could produce something better.  I don't know anything
about ODBC, but perhaps an interface based on that would be better?