RE: DRDA Connection Support (was news400 goes negative on IBM?)

["Wilt, Charles" <CWilt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Steve Richter
> Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2005 11:35 AM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: Re: DRDA Connection Support (was news400 goes 
> negative on IBM?)
> 
> 
> 
> SQL Server is accessible in .NET by using the SqlConnection and
> SqlCommand classes. A vendor's ODBC or ARD or DRDA driver would not
> lose any functionality going thru that interface ( my guess at least )

You're missing the point.

The point is, because MS and Oracle chose to use a proprietary protocol to talk 
to their respective RDBMSs you are forced to rely on the RDBMS vendor providing 
a ODBC/OLEDB/JDCBC driver for your platform of choice.

You can't use a single "generic" ODBC driver to access an _any_ ODBC database.

On the other hand, you can use a generic DRDA driver to access _any_ DRDA 
database.  Note that there are or at least were some non-IBM DRDA-compliant 
DBMS out there.  File Tek, Inc. Platinum Tech, GV DB/DC Sys, and XDB Sys, Inc. 
are some names I have seen referenced.  Platinum Tech was purchased by CA.  I'm 
not sure if CA still sells the Platinum Tech DBMS.

> 
> not enough demand for PHP also?

IIRC, PHP has already been ported to the iSeries by some brave souls.  Not to 
mention that I seem to recall that seeing an announcement that IBM would soon 
be officially supporting PHP on the iSeries.

> 
> What is interesting about this topic is how IBM's decision to keep ILE
> and RPG frozen in time in 1990  ripples thru its entire product line. 
> In .NET a programmer accesses the SQL Server database using the
> SqlConnection and SqlCommand classes.  To use the DB2 database, you
> use the Db2Connection and Db2Command classes. MySql uses another
> variation on those class names.  iSeries Db2/400 uses the
> iDb2Connection and iDb2Command classes.  Theoretically if you want
> your application to use a config file to control which database is
> used, a higher level class could be designed that would route the
> database i/o to whichever database is being used.
> 
> In RPG and ILE all the database function calls go thru the IBM
> supplied interfaces.  Since there is no support for classes in RPG,
> there are no SqlConnection and SqlCommand style classes that are used
> to access the database.   Since IBM routes everything thru its pipe on
> the side where the RPG program is, it has to provide the DRDA openness
> on the other side of the pipe.
> 
> The end result of the different approaches is that if a programmer
> wants to access a remote database from a .NET program all you have to
> do is plug in the .NET classes code provided by the database vendor. (
> or write it yourself ).   To do the same in RPG requires a large,
> complex, DRDA spec that in the end is not supported.
> 
> -Steve
> 

Give me a break, RPG doesn't have any factor on this discussion.

You're comparing the "openness" of compliers to the "openness" of the DBMS.  
Big deal that MS's .NET compiler can use non-Microsoft DB drivers.  If the 
other DBMS used an open protocol like DRDA, you wouldn't need more than one 
driver.  You don't in fact need Db2Connection and iDB2 connection.  The DB2 
.NET driver should work with DB2 on the iSeries, at least ODBC certainly does.  
You might lose some implementation specific stuff, but in general it doesn't 
matter.  Why?  because IBM's DB2 drivers talk DRDA instead of a proprietary 
protocol.

How long did it take for MS to finally offer an ODBC driver for Linux?  God 
forbid that anyone would want to access data in a SQL server from a non-windows 
platform.  Heck, they probably never would have except for the hackers out 
there who started reverse engineering a driver for Linux.

Not to mention that all the "openness" of .NET only applies if you're 
developing on/for Windows.  But that's another argument.

Charles Wilt