On Oct 30, 2012, at 7:55 AM, Alan Bateman wrote: > On 29/10/2012 12:41, John Yeary wrote: >> Thanks Ulf, that was my exact point Ulf. Although, you were much more >> eloquent. >> >> One of the most consistent things that Java has done is ensuring backwards >> compatibility. The removal of something like the JDBC-ODBC bridge will >> cause issues later. We tell people to upgrade all the time. Security >> problems arise and we patch them followed by a message to tell folks to >> upgrade. The consumer JRE even has a reminder application which asks them >> if they want to upgrade. One click, and their applications stop working.
The JDBC-ODBC Bridge was never included with the JRE, you had to install a JDK which provided it and not all JDKs do. >> >> Although I don't do anything now with MS Access, I see these nice Swing >> applications which end up with an Access database. The software that runs a >> number of Yoga studios has this configuration. It is the small businesses >> which rely on the cheaper Access based applications which will have >> problems. >> > The JDBC-ODBC bridge was a useful stop-gap 10+ years ago when there wasn't > JDBC drivers available for all databases. It has never supported to my > knowledge and the recommendation has always been to use a JDBC driver for the > database. For those that are still using it then they have another year to > find an alternative. I don't think that is too unreasonable. There will of > course be a warning on the download pages that developers will see. For MS > Access there are several JDBC drivers available, many of which support JDBC > 4.1. There are also other alternatives such as MySQL or Derby available that > might be better anyway. > > I think your point about communities or developers that have been using it > and aren't reading download pages, release notes or blogs is valid concern. > Any help reaching out to those communities would be appreciated. > > As regards releasing the source code then this is easier said than done. The > JDBC-ODBC bridge came from a third-party originally. To be honest I don't > think it's worth the cost and effort anyway as it's completely obsolete. There is a pretty big cost to continue to maintain, support, and test the JDBC-ODBC bridge properly given the amount of platforms, ODBC drivers, databases you would have to adequately test to do it properly. > If folks really see a need for this then it provides an opportunity to start > up a new project to develop a modern JDBC-ODBC bridge. > > -Alan
Lance Andersen| Principal Member of Technical Staff | +1.781.442.2037 Oracle Java Engineering 1 Network Drive Burlington, MA 01803 lance.ander...@oracle.com
