NYCPHP Meetup

[Hans Zaunere]

--- Michael Welsh <welsh_michael at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for your replies on nested objects.  I was hoping to find out if
> what I was doing was, well, do-able.  I hammered away at it last night
> until I got it to work.  I am still not completely convinced that objects
> in PHP are the way to go.  It takes A LOT of code and adds layers of
> complexity.  I'll give it more time to grow on me.  Besides, I've heard
> knowing when to choose procedures or objects is half the battle.

That certainly is half the battle; probably more IMO.  From initially doing
95% of my code OO, I've leveled off at about 20%, if even that, and have
discovered better mantainability, performance and overall design.

> I know php-talk is everything 'AMP' and I have had great fun and success 
> with that combination.  But, many of my applications hit a MSSQL datamart. 
> I'd like to dump that mart and use MySQL but I'm really hooked on stored 
> procedures and DTS for aggregation of disparate data sources and
> preparation of data.  I know I could use Perl or Python to do that.  The
> tricky part is when a user of my PHP app makes a call to a stored proc with
> parameter.

With some work, there are ways to emulate stored procedures as far as middle
and front-end work is concerned.  But you're right, stored procs can be hard
to beat.

> So... I've been consumed lately with getting SAPDB http://www.sapdb.org/ 
> working on a sample application.  I was thinking of moving some production 
> PHP apps to that database.  I have found SAPDB to be a powerful database. 
> I see it as a cross between MySQL and MSSQL/Oracle.  The setup was a little

> difficult for me (the windows version was much easier than the Linux) and 
> the tuning is fine grained like Oracle, but it is free and cross platform 
> like MySQL.  The feature set more closely resembles MSSQL/Oracle with 
> triggers, stored proc, and other gaps in MySQL.  The tools available are 
> pretty good too.  Once I got it up and running everything goes smoothly.

There's quite a buzz about SAPDB.  I'm anxious to get some time and play with
it, and I've heard many good things so far.  SAP themselves are renowed
business DB designers and it's good to see this kind of activity from them.

> Oh, and subjectively, I have found it to be quick.  I am calling the SAPDB 
> ODBC driver and not 'Unified' ODBC.

This has been my only hesitation to aggressively pursue SAPDB.  ODBC has
scared me in the past and I alway prefer to use native APIs where possible. 
I'll be curious to hear if you run into any issues with ODBC->SAPDB.

And oh, there's always PostgreSQL... pooooor ol' PostgreSQL  :)

H