Proprietary Sybase DBI/DBD module

[Joel Bernstein]

On 30 October 2012 17:32, Chris Jack <chris_jack at msn.com> wrote:

[ oh god, my eyes. please fix your mailer / quoting / attribution.
please. please. i'm begging. ]

>> There are, however, a couple of alternatives that you can consider.
>> Firstly, for a module to be considered "real" to most Perl
>> programmers, it needs to be on CPAN. The PAUSE FAQ[5] is still (as far
>> as I know) the best guide for getting a module onto CPAN.
> Sybase will be releasing to CPAN but they're still finishing off work/testing etc.

What's the question then? You seemed to be suggesting they wanted to
distribute it without putting it on CPAN. If they'll put it on CPAN,
it's a non-issue, just like Every Other Perl Module.

If they stick it on CPAN they can still do more work on it (and they
get other people to test it, too). CPAN releases should be regular,
not one-off.

And if it's not finished/tested enough for CPAN, why are you asking
how to get it into Perl core? Your question doesn't really make any
sense now.

>> You could try to get it into
>> the standard package repositories for these systems but the niche
>> nature of Sybase use is likely to count against you here.
> Niche is a point in time concept. SAP buying Sybase was a significant coupe for both companies. SAP competes head to head with Oracle in applications yet had been beholden to Oracle for its database. This had lead to all the complications you would expect. SAP is now pouring bucket loads of money into development of Sybase. 3 years ago, I was pessimistic that Sybase was going to become another hard to sell legacy skill on my CV (anyone remember SQLPlus: now there's a legacy database skill...). Now, I'm not so sure. SAP is targeting Sybase as being the number 2 commercial database in the world. They were able to add some credibility to that aim with statistics about the number of sites now migrating from Oracle to Sybase. But who knows.

That sounds pretty niche to me - a database I used to use a bit in the
past which is now basically used to support a certain big app. Not
seeing anybody migrating TO Sybase, are you?

And I'm not sure why you think SQL*Plus is a legacy skill, isn't it
still the standard command-line client for Oracle?

> From: Jason Clifford <jason at ukfsn.org>
>> So long as it being proprietary does not prevent this model of
>> distribution that's all you need to do.
> Thanks for your response too. It's only proprietary in the sense that it is written/maintained by SAP/Sybase. They're also releasing similar module for Python, PDP, and so on. They'll all be free and available in the standard locations like CPAN. RegardsChris

Then what is your question? I don't get it. Did you actually just want
to say "heads up guys, Sybase might actually be vaguely usable from
Perl without FreeTDS sometime soon"? Because that would've been a
better and less contentious message to send.

Finally, please, please, please fix your mailer, the
quoting/attribution in that was impressively broken and it took me
minutes just to -read- your reply.

/joel