FreeTDS Development Group

["Craig A. Berry" <craigberry AT mac.com>]

On Sep 7, 2011, at 10:30 PM, Mike Slifcak wrote:

> I've not used FreeTDS long.  And my use has only tried Perl DBD-Sybase and 
> DBD-ODBC.
> 
> Are you suggesting that the layers of configuration available are not 
> sufficient
> to access either Sybase or MS SQL Server with library modules built using 
> the same default TDS version?

The layers are sufficient, but the question is what the appropriate default 
is.  Currently the default is 5.0.  It's been that way for quite awhile.  
What I think that means is that Sybase and older (pre-2005?) Microsoft 
servers didn't need any non-default setting.  Newer Microsoft servers did 
(do), but there was never a default setting that worked for them, so every 
existing set-up that works has already done something to set the TDS version 
explicitly.

You're proposing to remove the option and essentially have a floating default 
of "the greatest TDS version that the source code supports."  Right now 
that's 7.2.  So that would basically reverse the current situation.  You 
could only connect to the latest Microsoft servers by default.  Older 
Microsoft servers and all Sybase servers would need an explicit setting 
somewhere.  Which has the potential to break working environments when 
someone upgrades.

5.0 may not be a sensible default in this day and age.  But I'm not sure 
there is a different one that makes sense either.

> Do you build one FreeTDS binary set for Sybase, then another binary set for 
> MS SQL?

I haven't had any Sybase access for some time, so no.  One could maintain 
separate binaries but it wouldn't normally be necessary.

________________________________________
Craig A. Berry
mailto:craigberry AT mac.com

"... getting out of a sonnet is much more
 difficult than getting in."
                 Brad Leithauser