Re: RFC C++ Interface

On Sun, Dec 10, 2000 at 06:53:11PM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > I appreciate your comments and would like to respond to your concerns.
> > The API I sketched in my earlier e-mail is borrowed heavily from
> > Rogue Wave's dbtools.h++ library.  I think it can be a very clean and
> > elegant way of accessing a database.
> 
> Rogue Wave's API is quite interesting.  It would be a challenge to
> implement.  If you think you can do it, I think it would be a real win,
> and a real object-oriented API to PostgreSQL.

I was co-architect of the Rogue Wave Dbtools.h++ interface design (along 
with somebody who actually knew something about databases, Stan Sulsky) in 
the early 90's.  We really tried to make the "Datum" type unnecessary in 
normal programs.  To my disgrace, I didn't participate in implementation;
it was implemented mainly by Lars Lohn, who went on to a stellar career 
as a consultant to users of the library.

At the time, ODBC was just beginning to be used.  Oracle was already
a bully, actually moreso than today; we had to buy a full production 
license just to develop on it.  Ingres was much better; they sent two
engineers to do the port themselves.  

The design is really showing its age.  SQL92 and SQL3 didn't exist then,
and neither did the STL or the ISO 14882 C++ Language standard.

Nathan Myers
ncm@zembu.com