Rob,

I have a stalled IB-related project on Linux. It's about GUI. Drop me a line
if you want to take over or join.
Now on other interfaces.... Shouldn't we stay mean and lean? Java is being
dumped by Sun. Indeed, it was born dead. Active X? C'mon, it's so bloated that
performance and stability is merely a joke with it. ODBC seems to be the only
viable option. But, IIRC, IB driver is 3rd party.
OK. But that's not all. Read to the end, then kick me, OK? :)
Here's what I'm afraid of. Currently IB community is an elite of a kind. We
all know the basics, we all work hard to keep ourselves trained and educated.
To me, sine qua non elite is an ability and a will to learn. Do we want to let
everyone in? As long as our community is small we can keep all products based
on IB on a high quality level by sharing experience with others and providing
our colleagues with help and advice. Can you imagine answering hundreds of
kiddies what it the 3rd normal form and why one might want triggers or SP
that return result set? Doing that daily? For long months?
IMHO, this is why Linux can't conquer home user market. People don't want to
study it, they just want doing things. This can be good or bad for home user,
but this is an absolutely inacceptable attitude of a developer.
More on that. End users sitting 9-17 in their cubicles don't see database
server. They work with applications. And the quality of these applications has
a great impact on DBMS reputation. `Oh, you know, last week they switched our
dept to some new database, what was its name, something in between.... oh, yea,
InterStore, wait, InterBase, yes. And you know what? This is a nightmare, I
must tell. Alll my buttons gone, I had neat boxes and those lil stripes, what,
they aren't there, man! As tell you, this open software is for geeks, a 4 am
fun, not for serious business people, yes.... And, oh boy, I'm giong to
complain about it, yes!'
Quality of applications is the key. And we must help each other with it. But
that gonna be way hard if there are thousands of us.

Take care


Edward V. POPKOV
Independent Developer

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