Re: Perl 6 and DBI

On 2015-02-04 4:28 PM, David E. Wheeler wrote:
> On Feb 4, 2015, at 4:23 PM, Greg Sabino Mullane <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> As you may have heard, Larry Wall gave a speech recently declaring
>> the goal of releasing Perl 6 this year, 2015. Honestly, there
>> is little chance of me using Perl 6 until it has a good, working
>> DBI.
>
> This goes for me, too, and many, many other people too, I’ve little doubt.

And in that case, there would/should be a discussion about what form this DBI 
for Perl 6 should take.

Personally I think one of the most important design changes DBI should make is 
that DBI becomes an API spec that drivers/engines must conform to in order to be 
certifiably compatible.  Part of the API is that user code can query the 
driver/engine to ask, "do you implement DBI" or "do you implement this version 
of the DBI API" etc.

DBI should not be an actual code layer that applications have to go through in 
order to talk with the driver/engine, as it is now.

However, there can exist Perl 6 roles or other shared libraries that a 
driver/engine may optionally use to help it implement the API rather than 
rolling its own.

Think of the kind of revolution that PSGI brought by working this way, just 
defining an API or protocol to conform to, rather than "being" a module that 
everything had to use.  DBI should do the same thing.

The actual details of the API / common interface are an orthogonal matter.  The 
key thing I'm looking for is no mandatory shared code between engines/drivers.

-- Darren Duncan