Re: Re: Why Perl does not support database access through core modules?

There are many people who would argue that the core distribution is already bloated - The addition of support for the many databases and libraries available would only grow the distribution further.

I agree.

However, to me, it seems to be a better idea, to have the database access interface bundled in Perl core, but leave individual database drivers out, and have them published and maintained through CPAN or vendors.

Comment on Re: Re: Why Perl does not support database access through core modules?

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Re: Re: Re: Why Perl does not support database access through core modules? by Aragorn (Curate) on Jan 21, 2004 at 08:41 UTC
Wouldn't that kind of defeat the purpose? “This is the standard database interface for you to use, but, ehh, oh, you still have to download and install the specific driver for the database you're using.” Besides, your suggestion is already practice, you can download database drivers and the interface from CPAN, etc. and this is documented in perlfaq8. Arjen	[reply]
Re x 4: Why Perl does not support database access through core modules? by bart (Canon) on Jan 21, 2004 at 11:17 UTC
You'll probably will still have to download, install and configure the database you plan to use, anyway, if you plan on using MySQL or PostGres. That is a much more daunting task. For more commercial databases, you have to start by downloading and installing the client libraries. Compared to these tasks, installing DBI is easy. Besides, DBI without any DBD::* drivers, is useless. OTOH, perhaps it wouldn't be unreasonable if Activestate started to include both DBI and DBD::ODBC with ActivePerl for Windows. That'd let those people have immediate access to their MS Office databases.	[reply]