Slashdot Mirror

"...the language is criticized for lack of a promised cross-platform function because of its ties to MS SQL server, which only runs on Windows..."

At one time Sybase and SQL Server used to be compatible. I would use MS SQL Server ODBC drivers to connect to Sybase running on *nix systems. I would also use the open source TDS software from http://www.freetds.org/ software to allow *nix machines to pull data from SQL Server running on Windows machines. Granted MS and Sybase seem to have forked the TDS protocol which both databases use.

1. You must be running Microsoft SQL Server as your database platform
2. Your web application must be vulnerable to SQL injection
3. The SQL Server user that your web application authenticates as must have SELECT and UPDATE access to the sysobjects table

Yep - I can think of at least one legitimate use for me. Working for a large nameless and faceless corporation, they do content filtering on the firewall and sometimes some suprising things get blocked. The FreeTDS site was blocked for some dumb reason, for example. Being a UNIX system administrator, I do a lot of research on security and hacking methods (I wear a white hat, for sure) and frequently get blocked by the firewall because I'm looking up stuff on sites it labels as "hacking related". I mean, duh, the crackers and script kiddies can get to all the information about how to compromise my systems, but I can't see the same information to figure out how to safeguard them?

I could set up my own authenticated server on my home box (Ubuntu) and proxy through it for unfettered access. Granted there'd be a speed hit because of the upload limit on the cable box, but it'd be better than having to send myself notes to download stuff at home and bring it back to work the next day on my pen drive.

Ever hear of Sybase ASE? This is where Microsoft SQL Server originated from. Actually, back then, Sybase's database was known as SQL Server. :-P

Although their versions of Transact SQL have forked (slightly), Sybase and Microsoft T-SQL is still roughly 98% compatible.

If your download FreeTDS from http://www.freetds.org/ and use that instead of the Microsft or Sybase libraries and download unixODBC you will be able to develop apps that'll run on most of the *nixes or Windows. And you can switch your DBMS from Sybase to Microsoft (and vice versa) with very little effort.

Anyhoo, FreeBSD does have a port of Sybase ASE 11.0.xxx which Sybase allows you to work with and last I heard, there were no licensing fees.

If you are stuck with MSSQL for your database backend then forget about anything but ASP.

With the right JDBC driver, java talks to MSSQL just fine. Even java running on *nix has no problems working with a MSSQL database on Windows box. It just works, and lots of `large scale websites' use java and MSSQL together.

Personally, I run perl code on my Linux box that works on a MSSQL database. It works fine too, though I've been a little frustrated that FreeTDS doesn't support placeholders yet. (But this is a limitation of FreeTDS, not MSSQL. And apparantly you can work around it by using ODBC, which I'm not going to do. But either way, it does work fine.)

I suppose the freetds folks could benefit from it, but SQLServer is probably patent encumbered, so perhaps they'll avoid looking ?

> Why is this a troll?

Good question. I guess someone didn't like me and blew all their mod points. Just to tick them off I'll post it again. :-)

Subject: For those of you who use Linux or Mac OS X...
...make sure you pick up a cross-platform tool for working with SQL. SQL Server is particularily hard to use in a cross-platform way, but thanks to the jTDS and FreeTDS projects, we now have drivers.

Linux and Mac OS X users, unite! Or untie. Or something...

...make sure you pick up a cross-platform tool for working with SQL. SQL Server is particularily hard to use in a cross-platform way, but thanks to the jTDS and FreeTDS projects, we now have drivers.

Linux and Mac OS X users, unite! Or untie. Or something...

Hrm. Is there really a sufficient market for this? I'd think that some of the work that the freetds folks have done would be relevant. (Of course, that's getting free clients to talk to MS SQL/Sybase servers, not the other way around)

You can use FreeTDS to connect apache to SQL Server. Re-engineering your applications for another database, not to mention the database migration itself, is a lot of work to move to a less capable server. OTOH, converting to Apache will get you a better product that's cheaper and more secure.

http://www.freetds.org

Heck

I think if you look at it from an angle, you'd find out this might actually be a good thing. This piece of "innovation" might render the likes of FreeTDS simply obsolete.

Using a MS SQL Server from a Linux host has always been difficult, now you can simply use IRC to fire your sql statements and get your data! Information at your fingertips. Information at everyone's fingertips!

Dave

if you dont _have_ to use ODBC, you could go for a native connection (much faster too...)

have a look at www.freetds.org or Sybase's OpenClient (sorry no URL).

I think you're mistaking supported drivers for included drivers. However, freetds_jdbc is good enough for use with BRL, even though a lot of advanced JDBC features are lacking. It's in production use where I work.