Re: OT: Heterogenous networks

Hi everybody,
usually I'm just a listener on this mailing list, but this time
I'd like to express my opinion. I see you're talking about VB and,
as it seems, an in house application. Then you speak about SOAP, DCOM
and CORBA. If you are making in house applications in VB, you can use
available tools without issuing to XML or SOAP. If you use a
client/server
approach, you can use the ODBC driver to access a Postgres server. If
you're
thinking to adopt a three-tier approach, you can build the middle tier
in
VB over a WIN2000 server (God save us!) and still access you Postgres db
over ODBC (in fact, it would be much better if there were a OLE-DB
driver):
the business rules are the most important part of your system and if you
know only VB, well, I can't see any other solution.
SOAP, Biztalk and the other MS appraches to platform independent
communications are geared toward business to business communication,
when
you need to access informations and applications that are located
remotely,
maybe on a different platform, but surely with a different information
structure (the same db will be designed with different tables by
different db experts), so there's a different context. In conclusion, I
don't think that one needs SOAP for in-house development. You must also
consider that XML creation, decode an transmission requires bandwith and
processing time, so it's not as efficient as an ODBC/OLE-DB driver.
I hope this helps.
Andrea Aime

Adam Lang wrote:
>
> Since all clients in my company are Windows and I already know VB, it is by
> far the most logical choice for a desktop application.
>
> But it doesn't necessarily mean MS only... granted the development tools
> gear towards it. That is the one advantage of SOAP and XML. It can handle,
> theoretically, the distributed environment for non MS hosts and it is not
> locking myself into MS technology.
>
> As for CORBA in VB, I think you need to use a DCOM to Corba bridge...
> atleast that is what I heard.
>
> Adam Lang
> Systems Engineer
> Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Joachim Achtzehnter" <joachim(at)kraut(dot)ca>
> To: "Adam Lang" <aalang(at)rutgersinsurance(dot)com>
> Cc: "pgsql-interfaces" <pgsql-interfaces(at)postgresql(dot)org>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 12:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [INTERFACES] OT: Heterogenous networks
>
> > Today, in a message to pgsql-interfaces Adam Lang wrote:
> > >
> > > Man... everything has to be so hard to make a decision on... Sometimes
> > > I wish someone was here before me that made these tech decisions...
> >
> > Stephen Crawley had written:
> > > >
> > > > CORBA is both standardised and platform independent.
> >
> > While I tend to agree with Stephen, and I had mentioned CORBA in an
> > earlier message too, Adam may be in a bit of a bind because he has settled
> > on using VB. I'm not aware of a CORBA mapping for that, is there one?
> >
> > By choosing VB one more or less commits to a Microsoft only solution,
> > arghh.
> >
> > Depending on the nature of your application you may also want to
> > investigate building a Web application. The client would be IExplorer to
> > stay with the Microsoft only approach. :) And you can also use VBScript if
> > you like.
> >
> > Joachim
> >
> > --
> > work: joachima(at)realtimeint(dot)com (http://www.realtimeint.com)
> > private: joachim(at)kraut(dot)ca (http://www.kraut.ca)