From owner-freebsd-database Tue Jan 27 01:31:21 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id BAA17926 for database-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:31:21 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-database@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from saba.kuentos.guam.net (root@saba.kuentos.guam.net [198.81.233.14]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id BAA17917 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:31:18 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from pkelly@saba.kuentos.guam.net) Received: (from pkelly@localhost) by saba.kuentos.guam.net (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA03463; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 19:33:31 +1000 (GST) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 19:33:30 +1000 (GST) From: Patrick Kelly To: freebsd-database@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Postgres and Solid In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-database@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk On Mon, 26 Jan 1998, The Hermit Hacker wrote: > On Tue, 27 Jan 1998, Patrick Kelly wrote: > > > I was using (briefly) postgreSQL, but got frustrated with the limited SQL. > > Limited SQL? *raised eyebrows* What version were you using? I was using 6.1.1 (still am). A cute little application that we did with it can be seen at http://weather.guam.net/ http://weather.guam.net/charts.html I did a good bit of work to bundle FastCGI, Tcl and the Postgres TCL access together. That's described at http://bolts.guam.net/fpgtcl http://photo.net/wtr/cheap-tcl.html (duplicate +comments at end) There are several things that I really like about Postgres. The TCL extensions are really nice and clean. The "psql" command line interface is really cool. (Especially compared to Solid's "solsql" which is absolute bare minimum functionality on FreeBSD.) Also, I was doing some Java stuff against Postgres and that worked real well, too. (That was a web explorer for http://search.micronesia.net [site is very incomplete/ inactive currently].) I started looking at doing extensions for Postgres, but decided that it would be better to not get into that. That would raise issues with keeping up with new versions/melding code, etc. And, I didn't want the risk of my breaking the database server myself. So, I started checking out Solid. ODBC support on PC's is really nice to have. I paid extra to get JDBC, cuz I want it. My bill was $1193 (if memory serves) for WebEngine + JDBC + 2 client connections. According to the licensing, this gives me unlimited connections from the machine where the server sits, plus up to 2 connections from clients on other machines. I grabbed the Perl DBI stuff and started playing with that. I've done a lot of Perl4 stuff, and moving to DBI means Perl5. It seems that Perl has become a monster, and it makes me nervous. I'm afraid that I'm gonna miss something, or not know something that I should, and screw something up. (I'm tired of breaking things.) So, now, I'm mapping the core ODBC library calls into TCL. I've never worked with ODBC before, but it looks like (from the Solid documentation) that the stuff I'm building will work where ever I can find an ODBC library. I like TCL because it's simpler and more easily groked than much of Perl. The plan is to get a webserver with TCL built in for the front end, but I haven't started working on the webserver yet. I know it's possible because of NeoWebScript (http://www.neosoft.com). I really like Postgres, but it seemed that Solid's limitations were more easily overcome than Postgres'. Also, ODBC is a real plus. If it had to be free, I would be using Postgres. But where I'm at, $1k looked like a good deal. patrick