Why click n? drag IT may elude us

TalkBack 7 of 12:

Next »

« Previous

• Thread View
• Flat View

Database Portability: More Theoretical Than Practical

ASA's rejection of my VB code haunted me to the point that it didn't matter whether a workaround existed. I checked with Sybase's technical support to see if there was a logical explanation before I deployed the SQL workaround. Based on the information available, Sybase tech support determined that ASA was complaining that my code might not be compatible with the ANSI standard for SQL. Their suggestion was to set a flag that turned ASA's ANSI compatibility off before manipulating any records. The suggestion worked. Even though it did, I'm leaning towards going with the SQL approach anyway. (Let me know if you think this is a mistake.)n

Assuming you are using ADO in VB or Office to access and manipulate the tables in whatever target database you are working with, it seems to me that you will not be able to access unique capabilities within a database if you take the ANSI route. As a practical matter, most databases have many useful features that go beyond the ANSI standard, and ADO has objects that allow you to access data in more or less standard ways among databases, but also lets you gain access to these unique features. (Also note that you will find idiosyncrasies when manipulating data in different databases in 'standard ways', that you will have to deal with while developing your code.) This is why I?ve found the notion of code being portable among databases theoretical. As a practical matter, an application is not going be used against every conceivable database, and there are real advantages to optimizing your code to work against a few select databases without too much trouble. It?s my opinion that you should lean against taking the ANSI route, because you will be forsaking too many advantages present in databases that vendors help use to differentiate themselves from one another. However, try and structure your data access code to be as general purpose as possible. Then have code specific to different databases present if necessary.

As for having to go and through and change a lot of your code: see if you can cleverly use the Search and Replace operation in your code editor to do a lot of the work for you.

Posted by: P. Douglas   Posted on: 06/25/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• Building the Virtualized Enterprise with VMware Iinfrastructure VMware VMware virtualization software has been adopted by over 120,000 enterprise ... Download Now
• Three Steps You Need to Know to Stop Data Loss Varonis Sensitive data exposed to misuse or loss... it is the stuff of nightmares ... Download Now
• Why Isn't Server Virtualization Saving Us More? A Few Small Changes May Dramatically Increase Your Efficiency VMware Companies have rapidly adopted server virtualization over the past few ... Download Now