Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to Article on ACS x Zope

Collapse
Posted by Don Baccus on
This isn't quite true. Zope-specific database adapters (DAs) still need to be written for each DB you want to use. For example, you're not going to be able to use SQL methods to grab stuff out of Interbase any time soon unless you write the Zope database adapter yourself. There is an article on how to write a Zope DA at http://www.zope.org/Members/petrilli/WritingADA. This might give you an idea at what's involved in interfacing Zope to a new relational database.
No magic bullet. Ok, I'm shocked, astonished, and otherwise horrified to learn this. After all, I've got so much to learn from Zope's OO approach!

Look, folks, the nitty-gritty hiding of RDBMS differences is a major pain in the ass, due largely to vendor (and open source provider, including PostgreSQL) slackness in regard to implementing SQL92.

It's adherence to the existing SQL standard that's the problem, not the paradigm used to build various applications that sit upon them.

Porting, as a problem, shouldn't even exist. The intersection of various RDBMS' compliance with the SQL92 standard should be sufficient that we shouldn't even be worrying about this. That's the real problem. Postgres doesn't have outer joins. Oracle thinks the empty string ('') is equivalent to NULL (boo, hiss, total rape) and has a very non-standard (albeit useful) way of dealing with dates.

On and on.

The problem does exist, and does because the intersection of features with common syntax isn't up to snuff. That's not aD's fault, nor the Zope folks fault. It's just the way of the world.