FreeTDS Development Group

["James K. Lowden" <jklowden AT freetds.org>]

Hi Michael, 

michael.peppler AT bnpparibas.com wrote:
> Database engines do speak SOAP, or can be made to (eg ASE 12.5.x and 15 
> can be configured to do so with an add-on feature).

Learn something new every day....

The problem with SOAP, from what I can tell, is that it's both too much
and too little where databases are concerned.  It's stateless, right?  Is
there a cancel protocol?  

> However, as a general method of communicating with clients I think the 
> overhead would be much too high. The TDS protocol is *much* more compact
> 
> than XML and requires a lot less conversion (data sent in binary)...

I look forward to the day when database clients and servers are as
interchangeable as are web and email servers and clients.  It is a dim and
distant future, I know.  To get there, we need a text-based protocol, even
if it includes an xs:base64Binary encoding option.  (There is no example
of a widely implemented free binary protocol, unless you count NFS, which
I don't.)  It certainly won't put the proprietary/specialized protocols
out of business right away, but it would simplify and standardize database
access.  

I personally believe this will a logical outgrowth of the widespread
adoption of free databases.   

Regards, 

--jkl