Re: Rant to the guiding lights of Postgres

So the counter to this of course is "Hey Paul, we'll give you a complete
database server for free to replace your existing databases and save you
tons and tons of $$$, and all we ask in return is that you write a small
terminal program for your OS and donate it back." That sure sounds
like a good trade to me, don't you think?

In reality though I'm pretty sure that psql and pg_dumpall do compile
under Win32 and MacOS, if not under 7.4 then certainly under 7.5, so
really these options are already available to you, they are just not in
a pretty package. (hey, let me CC one of the developers in case not...)

Now, if you want to help by compiling the client programs and wrapping
them up into a nice one click install for windows users (or mac users)
we have project space available on gborg.postgresql.org you're more than
welcome to use. Otherwise you'll have to wait for someone else to decide
they want to maintain such a thing, and no one has stepped up yet
(though it has been discussed before)

Robert Treat

On Wed, 2004-02-11 at 08:58, Paul Smith wrote:
> I am evaluating Postgres for an existing Java application. I already have
> the app running with Oracle ($$$) and Sybase (oooold!) and I am trying to
> convince my management that it is worth going fully open source. (We already
> use Java, JBoss, Eclipse etc.) But the problem I am having, and it seems I
> am not alone, is the absence of Client support in postgres. I can fully
> understand why the db server is Linux/Unix as this covers the majority of
> servers used for enterprise applications, but I can not understand the
> abscence of platform support for the client software. Where is the Mac psql,
> or the Win XP version of pg_dumpall? Clients do not use Linux boxes, they
> use Wintel or Mac boxes. You do not have to like it, but ignoring them
> doesn't make them go away.
>
> I do not need the fancy GUI interfaces like PGExplorer, they are nice, and
> handy to port my scripts and test my stored procedures, but I can't use them
> to automate the creation of my database.
>
> Sybase had iSQL for scripts and bcp for data loading. Oracle had sqlplus and
> sqlldr. These are the basic client side tools required to automate the setup
> and maintence of a non-trival database, and they are available on almost any
> platform you care to name.
>
> And before anybody suggests I use Cygwin, I have used Cygwin, I do not like
> it (mild understatement) and nor am I prepared to learn Tcl just to run a
> script that already works. Run a script to load a telnet session to run a
> script to run my script? Be serious.
>
> Please, guys. Open source is the way to go. We need to convince accountants
> that it is the sensible, safe and cheap way to develop software. But that
> means we have to do our jobs! When we write client-server systems, write the
> clients as well as the servers.
>
> Can it really be that difficult to write a native mode psql? Have you
> considered doing it in Java?
>

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