Re: new maintainer for the ODBC driver?

I have a "learning" edition of VC++ 4. Never really used it.... but I could
try to compile if necessary. (Never to late to learn, right?)

As for driver support, I think the reason there is not much static on the
ODBC Windows end is that most coders that write for Windows (that use VB,
etc.) are not using Linux Application Servers for backends. Sort of a
different mentality than Java developers. Java typically has the mindset of
"any platform" and VB, VC, Access, tends to have the mindset of "Microsoft
Platform".

For Postgres to make inroads on Windows based apps, an ODBC driver has to be
supported... or even better, an OLE DB driver (for ADO connections).

Adam Lang
Systems Engineer
Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
----- Original Message -----
From: "kovacsz" <zoli(at)pc10(dot)radnoti-szeged(dot)sulinet(dot)hu>
To: "Thomas Lockhart" <lockhart(at)alumni(dot)caltech(dot)edu>
Cc: <pgsql-interfaces(at)postgresql(dot)org>; <dpage(at)vale-housing(dot)co(dot)uk>;
<mha(at)sollentuna(dot)net>; <cedarc(at)visionforisrael(dot)com>;
<aalang(at)rutgersinsurance(dot)com>; <byron(dot)nikolaidis(at)home(dot)com>
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2000 11:00 AM
Subject: Re: new maintainer for the ODBC driver?

>
> On Wed, 25 Oct 2000, Thomas Lockhart wrote:
>
> > Hi Zoltan. I *finally* committed your patches to the main tree a few
> > minutes ago. Sorry for the huge delay. afaik you are the defacto
> > maintainer of ODBC :)
>
> Huh... What to say now... :-?
>
> Well, Byron's comment about THE maintainer (he/she should have a large
> amount of M$ application) points out that we could only continue using
> ODBC in future versions of PostgreSQL if all of us test the driver
> periodically with our installed Windows applications. I.e., Cedar might
> test the Access side, Dave might test the pgadmin side (I don't remember
> if it is written in VB or VC), Thomas might test the Applixware side and
> we test it with our BCB/ODBCExpress application as well. As Magnus and
> Adam wrote, the best thing would be to write something like Postgres'
> regression tests but I think it would be very much time---the applications
> already working with earlier versions of the driver might be used instead.
> I think that among the above things pgadmin is the most important one
> because---checking the mailing lists---it is the most widely used Windows
> application for Postgres. But I'm not sure.
>
> There must be (at least---and in my opinion at most) one man ("the
> patcher") who is responsible for patching the source with the new codes.
> As Byron wrote, each change should be tested by at least 4 people. So I
> don't think it would be useful to change the CVS immediately, only after
> every tester reported that the new version works well.
>
> Respecting to Cedar's opinion about the free C compilers, I know that the
> Borland C++ 5.5 command-line compiler is free, but I never used it. Other
> possibilites are DJGPP which perhaps could create DLLs (but I also never
> used it for making any code for Windows). CygWin can be also a solution.
> This week I would like to try all these (th/f)ree compilers with the ODBC
> source.
>
> I know that the current source can be compiled with VC and BCB 4/5 as
> well, the compiling process is almost automatic, but these compilers are
> not free. In a need I can compile the DLL with our registered BCB 4.
>
> Finally, a question to Byron: what are your future plans with the driver?
> Are you going to have some time for checking the new parts of the code or
> answerring questions about the working mechanism of the old parts?
>
> IMHO, the ODBC driver at the current state is a great one, so it's worth
> to continue the work on it. Have you got any statistics about the number
> of people using the driver at the moment? This year most of the mails
> on the INTERFACES list are about the JDBC driver. So, sometimes I don't
> think that the ODBC driver has any future. But now, maybe... :-)
>
> Regards, Zoltan
>