Python and Databases

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Gerhard Häring wrote:
> Geraldo Lopes de souza wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>>    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.
> 
> Really? All you get with Java is the JDBC standard, with dozens of 
> implementations (which is not entirely unlike things are done in 
> Pythonia). Java's interfaces are of course stronger than the interfaces 
> of Python (which in this case, is the DB-API specification).

The JDBC/Java situation is just as complicated to maintain as
ODBC/Python is. Look at it this way: eGenix puts a great deal
of work into making ODBC/Python less troublesome than JDBC/Java
is without any expensive Java/driver vendor support contracts.

>>   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 strongly disagree. An ODBC library (which Microsoft considers 
> obsolete, btw.)

That's what they want you to think... under the hood they are
pretty busy shipping new versions of their ODBC drivers and
ODBC is the defacto standard for database interacing out there,
no matter how hard MS will try to change that.

> has no place in the Python standard library, let alone 
> the Python language. The best argument against is that there is 
> practically nobody who'd be able to maintain such a beast (for free).

Agreed.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com

Professional Python Software directly from the Source  (#1, May 19 2003)
 >>> Python/Zope Products & Consulting ...         http://www.egenix.com/
 >>> mxODBC, mxDateTime, mxTextTools ...        http://python.egenix.com/
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EuroPython 2003, Charleroi, Belgium:                        36 days left