To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Roadmap for FE/BE protocol redesign
References: <19041.1047322279@sss.pgh.pa.us> <3E6EEA9B.3050201@xythos.com>
	<27307.1047485980@sss.pgh.pa.us>
In-Reply-To: <27307.1047485980@sss.pgh.pa.us>
From: Greg Stark <gsstark@mit.edu>
Organization: The Emacs Conspiracy; member since 1992
Date: 14 Mar 2003 10:22:19 -0500
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So, just to throw out a wild idea: If you're talking about making large
changes to the on-the-wire protocol. Have you considered using an existing
database protocol? This would avoid having to reinvent the wheel every time
postgres implements a new feature like prepared queries, bind arrays, or
metadata information.

There is a free implementation of the TDS (Tabular DataStream) protocol used
by Sybase and MSSQL. I don't know how much of it would be interesting for
postgres and how much is Sybase/MSSQL-specific.

It would be pretty neat if postgres could use precisely the same on-the-wire
protocol as other major databases, just requiring a separate high level driver
to interpret the semantic meaning of the data.

At the very least it sounds like interesting to do a compare and contrast as
far as understanding what advantages the features TDS has have and what
disadvantages, before postgres possibly misses good ideas or makes the same
mistakes.


-- 
greg