Language forks (was: Python tutorial/comparison for C++ programmer)

[Steve Holden]

Chris Ryland wrote:
> 
> A cynical view of ODBC's appearance might be (I was there, indirectly) that
> Borland had already proposed a competing (and working) standard, and MS
> wanted to regain control of that situation.
> 
> Naw.
> --
> Cheers!
> / Chris Ryland, President / Em Software, Inc. / 

In many ways the Borland/IBM IDAPI interface promised better access
than ODBC.  But it lost out because of the muscle that was lined up
behind ODBC.  IDAPI allowed server-side as well as client-side
drivers, making multi-database joins easier than with ODBC.  It also
had botha SQL *and* a row-based access method.

Sadly it was a victim of Borland's uncertainties, and as far as I know
nobody seriously supports it nowadays.

Pretty much like Sun's NeWS, which lost out big time to X Window just
because it was a proprietary Sun technology: effectiveness and suitability
just aren't selection criteria.

Hail to the pointy-haired people!

regards
 Steve

> "Steve Holden" <sholden at bellatlantic.net> wrote in message
> news:38DFA08C.4142A22 at bellatlantic.net...
> > In Microsoft's defense (what, me? this must be my good deed for
> > the week) we should remember that they DO have occasional good
> > ideas such as ODBC.  I'm aware it has shortcomings, but it's
> > made multi-platform database systems a practical reality.
> >
> > And, of course, mxODBC (among others) brings these benefits
> > to the Python world too.
> >
[etc.]

--
"If computing ever stops being fun, I'll stop doing it"