[orm-devel] Re: ORM

[Uwe (Peter) Feldtmann]

Hi Ross,

> Not to chase you away, or anything, but I think you might want to take a
> look at the GNUe project, as well as ORM: it's targetted more at the 'all
> singing, all dancing' sort of system your talking about. My understanding
> of Deidrich's vision/goals for ORM is that it's biggest virtue is in it's
> light weight - it's a membrane, not an entire layer. I'd be concerned about
> blowing it up with functions like database schema management  - it'd lose
> it's lightness, I'm afraid.
> 

I agree with you that we shouldn't detract from ORM's original goals,
however, a separate data manager class responsible for tables that uses
ORM might be a nice addition to the library.  The same class could be
further extended to provide additional info for field sizes (UI) etc.

> GNUe (which is also python based), on the other hand, takes an approach
> much like you've suggested above: the 'middleware' handles all the
> database work. It's developers come out of your world of 4GLs and
> SQL*Reports and such - take a look at http://www.gnuenterprise.org. To
> date, they've focused on building tools, but they've plans for packages
> (like POS or CR) as well. To get a real flavor of who the developers
> are and where things are at, there's a weekly 'news summary' of the
> development lists (and IRC logs) at http://kt.zork.net/GNUe/latest.html
> 

I've been following GNUe for 2 years now as I too thought it would be a
good starting point for my apps. GNUe might eventually be an ideal tool
set for enterprise apps, however, most of my end users are SME's and
require simpler (to administer) applications. That's why they bought my
apps in the first place.  

> Deidrich, you might even want to take a look at what they're doing - it's
> a different approach, but sometimes ideas can cross-fertilize. They're
> all young and energetic, too. ;-)

Good idea but try not to get side tracked.  

Uwe.