intertwingly

Maik Schmidt: The story of ruby-db2 is a bit complicated. The project has been initiated by Michael Neumann several years ago, because he needed a Ruby binding for DB2. Today he does not use DB2 any longer and so he stopped maintaining ruby-db2.

Having looked at the ruby-db2 implementation, I came to the conclusion that I would not like to maintain it.  Perhaps others may come to different conclusions, but if history is any guide, I doubt it.

I see a set of several intersecting problems.

I see a need for a complete, maintainable, documented, and uncompromising “direct to the metal” interface to DB2.  At the moment, I don’t see ruby-db2 getting there.  By contrast, I do believe that I can attract others (in particular, in the DB2 development organization) to help maintain and document and interface which precisely matches the PHP-DB2 interface.

I agree with David Heinemeier Hansson that ActiveRecord’s DB2 support should build upon such a base instead of another layer of abstraction.  Looking at the existing implementation, it is fairly small, and mostly has to deal with the fact that the ability to bind parameters is somewhat lacking in Ruby-DB2.  In summary, switching to the base that I started would result in a smaller, faster, and more maintainable ActiveRecord implementation.

Finally, there is a need for a dbi-next interface to DB2.  That, too, could be built on the same base.

I guess it comes down to this: how to we quantify and locate the “lot of people” who are using ruby-db2?  Given the current state of the documentation and completeness, I have my doubts that there are all that many.

Note: I am not talking about anything that needs to be decided this week or next, but instead trying to determine the direction that we should take in the upcoming months to rebuild a foundation that will last for years.