FreeTDS Development Group

["Gregg Anderson" <ganderson AT ghx.com>]

Thanks.  I am happy as a clam that I have this option because we were running 
into dead end after dead end...  We are only planning on doing straight 
selects but may be returning large result sets.

So far, we were able to return 25,800 records w/3 columns in 9 seconds.  Not 
bad considering the SQL Server is running on a beat down Compaq PIII 866 
laptop.

I will keep you updated on our progress if anyone else is interested in 
Oracle heterogeneous services connecting to SQL Server 2000.

--Gregg

-----Original Message-----
From: Lowden, James K [mailto:LowdenJK AT bernstein.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2004 3:15 PM
To: FreeTDS Development Group
Subject: RE: [freetds] RE: SQLServer2000 and version 0.63 


> From: Gregg Anderson [mailto:ganderson AT ghx.com]
> Sent: April 22, 2004 3:13 PM
> 
> Any idea when version .63 will be considered a stable 
> release?  And are there plans to better support the Oracle 
> heterogeneous services without the development flag needing enabled?

I can answer that, backwards.  :-)

The ODBC driver is an ongoing experiment^Weffort.  As Frediano observed not 
long ago, the problems are getting harder.  Two years ago, we were happy to 
see basic functions working correctly.  Now we're seeing the driver deployed 
against standard ODBC applications. Successfully, sometimes.  

As far as the ODBC driver development goes, Freddy more than leads the way.  
He writes the code and applies the patches.   It's a big project, and there's 
room for others to join, but what's mostly happened is that people send 
(sometimes huge) patches from time to time.  So, what gets implemented is 
basically a function of one man's effort and sporadic over-the-transom help.  
(I mostly tend the garden, researching and testing.  I don't like the ODBC 
spec very much, but I need it to work correctly, so I help.)  

One of the growing impediments is a lack of facilities and testers.  Take for 
example "Oracle heterogeneous services", the existence of which I first 
learned a few weeks ago.  I'm pretty sure none of the active developers has 
such a system at his disposal for FreeTDS testing.  It's proprietary, 
commercial, and expensive.  If someone such as yourself (i.e., who has such a 
system) were prepared to conduct the necessary testing, he could compile a 
list of functions/options that need writing.  Then they could be written and 
revised until they actually worked, and we could update api_status.txt.  

AFAIK, there's no free ODBC testing tool, nothing to exercise the API and 
list the working and non-working parts.  Neither do applications comes with a 
list of functions they require from a driver.  They either work or don't, and 
we can but hope that the logs explain what's missing.  

The process of collecting the function points (now you know how old I am) and 
implementing them has occurred repeatedly, with different degrees of 
formality.  When someone posts a message saying X would work if a, b, and c 
were implemented, that goes straight to the TODO.  Eventually it gets moved 
to the bottom, under "done".  It gets there sooner if a unit test is 
included, and soonest if it comes with a patch. ;-)  The DBD::Sybase 
interoperation got improved that way.  It's also why FreeTDS works with 
OpenOffice.org at all, and (if history is any guide) how that support will be 
improved.  

As for timing, there's no new release contemplated anytime soon.  I expect 
the CVS snapshots to remain stable; you could do worse than depend on that.  
Don't be shy with --enable-developing if you know why you're using it.  That 
said, we accept patches, testing support, encouragement, and even (to some 
degree) direction, in roughly that order.  I like to issue releases when new 
features make the prior release obsolete.  How soon that happens depends, as 
you know, on who's involved.  

I hope that answers your questions.  

Regards, 

--jkl


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