---------- Original Message -----------
From: "Ann W. Harrison" <aharrison@...>

> One problem that system programmer face that's not universal among
> application developers is that there are no temporary solutions.
> Everything that gets released lives forever - or close enough.
> So throwing in a hack that can't be made architecturally sound
> is a little like building a new pavilion out of stones you've dug
> out of the foundation.
> Ann

------- End of Original Message -------

One problem that application programmers face that's not universal among system
developers is that we can't afford to make the perfect the enemy of the good
[enough]. Sarcasm aside, I get your point. I wouldn't recommend that the core
Firebird team release this kind of UDF officially when it's intended to
eventually be done correctly.

Current solutions to this problem, whether using the cross-database functionality
provided by another DBMS (sql server, via its ODBC bridge) or in-application
(opening concurrent connections with no 2PC), already have the issue of
distributed transactions not being handled correctly. So it's no worse than what
we're all doing in the mean time, but potentially much more convenient. (Heck,
I've got the sql server team accessing my firebird database via ODBC, and I'm
quite sure they don't even know how to use transactions on their own platform,
let alone one that doesn't suck!)

If I ever get around to this, I'll keep it under wraps. =)

-Philip