[racket] Racket in the large

Hi Neil, hi all,


>> 
> 
> Regarding Oracle and DB2, I suspect that anyone invested in one of those 
> could use some of the open source Racket interfaces for other RDBMSs as 
> examples for supporting another RDBMS.  The cost might be relatively 
> minor (considering the large existing investment in the RDBMS).


For my private use (and with the intention to put it on Planet some time if I find the courage :-;), I've started working on bindings to the open source OCILIB library, a widely used, very convenient and time-saving wrapper around Oracle's own OCI.
Although at the moment it would be version 0.0 ... 01 or such, it will be "work in progress" and evolve not for the next months, but for the next years for sure, as for me it will be the enduring link between job (having turned Oracle DBA since spring last year) and spare time interest (Racket).



> 
> 
>> 6. I think there is one thing missing in Racket, and this was also pointed out during the discussion: database drivers for major DBMSs (I would say at least Oracle, DB2 and SQL Server on the commercial front, and PostgreSQL, SQLite and MySQL on the open source front). In addition to that, I think Racket would be greatly enhanced by a single relational data access layer that would hide the differences between specific RDBMSs and facilitate switching from one to another. (Note: I am not trying to dictate anything about Racket, just voicing my opinion).
> 


Perhaps I can add a remark to this "from the other" (the database admins') side :-; ? From the point of view of an Oracle DBA (I'm emphasizing "Oracle" here as I don't want to generalize, having no comparable experience with other rdbms's), applications written with a goal of "database independence" can be a big problem and lead to grave performance (or even, data integrity) issues. This is because even though the sql may be the same, important concepts like read consistency etc. are implemented in a very different ways in different rdbms'.
So anyway, when an application changes to use another rdbms, major work might be required  ...

Ciao,
Sigrid