Re: Perl 6 and DBI

On 2015-02-06 10:50 AM, Tim Bunce wrote on dbi-users:
> On Thu, Feb 05, 2015 at 12:23:40AM -0000, Greg Sabino Mullane 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. Anyone know the state of things with DBI and Perl6? Is the
>> goal still to implement what is basically DBI v2, or perhaps
>> someone is working on a simple port of the existing DBI? Is
>> a working DBI even on their list of blocker features for a release?
>
> On MoarVM the perl5 DBI can be accessed via the Inline::Perl5 module.
> That probably counts as a "reasonable working DBI" :)
>
> Back in 2007 I said this:
> http://www.slideshare.net/Tim.Bunce/dbi-for-parrot-and-perl-6-lightning-talk-2007
>
> Then in 2010 I said this:
> http://www.slideshare.net/Tim.Bunce/perl6-dbdi-yapceu-201008
>
> I still think that's the right way to go, for all the reasons expressed
> in the slides.

I support this in principle, particularly the part about having a 
language-agnostic DBI that can be reused across multiple languages otherwise 
capable of running in the same VM.

However, I still think there should be no mandatory sharing of code between 
different DBMS interfaces, for example one shouldn't be required to share any 
code between say a PostgreSQL interface and a MySQL interface.

What we should have instead is documented API standards, and a shared test suite 
written to that API that each DBMS interface implements, and that this common 
API is what we call "DBI".

For example with a minimal delta from how it works now in Perl 5, we go from this:

   $dbh = DBI->connect('dbi:pg:foo', ...);

... to this:

   $dbh = DBD::Pg->connect('foo', ...);

... and the $dbh etc essentially behaves the same, but now DBI is just an 
interface that DBD::Pg etc provides to the public rather than a mandatory extra 
piece of mediating code.

> What's missing is a team of people with the right skill willing to work
> on it.  I've had little time to do more than the tinkering I've already
> done and I'm severely hampered by knowing ~zero perl6 or Java.
>
> Volunteers are most welcome to express interest on the dbi-dev mailing list.
>
> Tim.

I am certainly interested in this, and so am expressing so on dbi-dev.

That being said, for the moment I am working to tackle the problem from a 
different angle, which loosely resembles your proposal but is distinct.  I hope 
to have the start of something executable in about 2 months that people can play 
with.  (It will actually be in Perl 5 initially, but a Not Quite Perl port would 
follow.)  Then we could either use that as a point of departure, or otherwise it 
could just help inform your proposal.

-- Darren Duncan