RE: [GENERAL] Future of PostgreSQL

On Mon, 27 Dec 1999, Jeff Duska wrote:

> Just a few questions on the Future of PostgreSQL. I plan to play with
> PostgreSQL project in the next few months. Since I am not yet knowledgable
> about the internal PostgreSQL code and nor am I an database engine expert, I
> thought I could work on projects that are "add-on" to PostgreSQL. All the
> projects I mention will be Open Source using GPL or BSD. I've figuring GPL,
> just because I have already found a lot code written in GPL. Here are the
> projects I was thinking about, yet I was concerned.
>
> Administration Tools? Are the current tools acceptable? Do you want
> something more?
> I planning on creating add-in to jEdit that would be a Visual Database
> designer tool that works with any JDBC database, including PostgreSQL. I was
> also think of taking it a step farther and making it know how to talk with
> PostgreSQL via a native API.

What's wrong with the existing JDBC driver? It's as close to a native api
as you can get (its internals are based on libpq).

> For those of you familar with Visual Studio or Delphi it would look like one
> of these Visual Tools mixed with ideas from Oracle's Designer and
> Microsoft's Managment Console. Is this something the group would be
> instrested in?

We already have pgaccess, but a Java based variant would IMHO be a useful
addition. You should have compatibility with pgaccess (which I believe has
forms? I've not used it, so I'm not certain on this).

I have thought about this myself, but just never had the time.

> Java support in the database?
> Just about all the current db have support for Java in the database. As an
> example, Oracle has a JServer option that can be added to Oracle 8i. Would
> something like this be of intrest to the group? Or should I look at other
> things?

We did have some discussion (ok brief) a few months ago about what it
would take to implement a "PL/Java" interface for the backend. It's not
going to be an easy thing to do, but it may have some benefits. I do have
some ideas here on that subject.

> Internet
> Oracle, IBM and other have all kinds of different Internet technologies such
> as portable version of the database -- XML, HTML export and imports,
> CORBA/Application Server type support.

I'm messing around with XML & Java at the moment for TASS, and it's not
that difficult. HTML can be done as XML (The XML DTD exists for HTML).

Corba has been a common thread recently, but is hindered by which ORB to
use, and that orbs licence and porability.

On the other hand, in the source there's a simple example of using JDBC to
link simple CORBA apps to the backend.

Peter

--
Peter T Mount peter(at)retep(dot)org(dot)uk
Main Homepage: http://www.retep.org.uk
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