Python and Databases

[Ian Bicking]

On Mon, 2003-05-19 at 15:41, Geraldo Lopes de souza wrote:
>    I'm not a python programmer, but I like the language. I have read the
> manuals installed and played a little with wxPython (a nice library), I'm a
> Delphi programmer, I work making database applications. I have considered to
> change to python, because it's a superior language, productive, expressive,
> etc.
> 
>   From time to time I stop and try to do this, but I face one thing: The
> lack of multi-database library. I think that this block many people from
> making this change. If you're going to use just one database then ok, but if
> you want to use more than one, you have just one choice: the mxODBC package.
> It looks like a great package , it worths the price, but with java for
> example, I get more much more ( in library terms) for less.

On Windows there's an ODBC package, though I believe it's unmaintained. 
It would be nice if mxODBC was, say, GPL -- if people want to produce
proprietary software, they should be willing to pay for their software. 
But then, ODBC is used for so many internal projects that are
effectively proprietary, but not restricted by the GPL... so it probably
wouldn't work that well.

Anyway, someone is welcome to write another implementation.  I think one
major reason people don't do so is because it's easier to write
database-specific libraries, and I don't really see the advantage of
ODBC as a standardized layer, compared to the DB API.  But then I'm not
the most experienced person in these things, so there might be something
I'm missing.

>   I don't intend to attack or be rude with the commercial package , but I
> have seen many discussion of the acceptance of python to make business
> applications.
>  To increase this the python community needs a standard ODBC library in the
> language.

I think you're probably right.  But one problem is that ODBC also is not
fun.  There's nothing interesting about implementing ODBC on your spare
time -- this isn't something that will come out of the community
spontaneously.  

I'm sure lots of people use ODBC and Python in their job.  Some of these
people have the skills to make an ODBC driver for Python.  But while
quite a few employers *say* they want to give back to the community and
release code, few are willing to actually give their employees time (on
the clock) to make that happen.

  Ian