Re: [boost] database library (was Report from Berlin C++ Standards Committee meeting)

From: Yuval Ronen (ronen_yuval_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-04-16 08:25:25

Jeff Garland wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Apr 2006 08:28:39 +0300, Yuval Ronen wrote
> 
>>So we're standardizing ODBC? 
> 
> No -- the committe doesn't standardize Posix, but it is now getting leveraged
> by implementations of several libraries.
> 
> 
>>The committee would require 
>>compiler/std-lib vendors to supply a C++ wrapper for ODBC (without 
>>forbidding supplying additional wrappers with same interface for 
>>other databases)?
> 
> 
> Actually I don't think the proposal needs to require ODBC at all.  I was just
> saying that a typical approach for library developers to get coverage across
> many databases would be to use a common interface supported by many databases
> in the implementation. But if they or a database company wants to provide a
> really optimized version for a particular db, the design should allow it.
> 
> In any case, this would be going into a TR -- so it's optional for the vendors
> anyway.

What I'm trying to understand is what will be *required* by 
compiler/std-lib vendors, if they want to call themselves standard C++. 
One possible answer is to say "nothing is required". Everything is 
optional. Note that saying that it's TR so it's optional anyway doesn't 
quite cut it in the long run. I'm talking about acceptance to the 
stantard itself some day. So saying "nothing is required" means there's 
no plan to *ever* require it, even when the TR is merged into the stantard.

However, if the plan is to require this interface some day as part of 
the stantard library, something that a std-lib vendor can't omit if it 
wants to be compliant, then I don't know what can be required that is 
implementable by std-lib vendors.