June 22, 2009
Microsoft Kills Oracle ADO.NET Driver
The ADO.NET driver won't be further developed, as officially announced in the ADO.NET Team Blog. Originally missing in .NET 1.0, in which the SQL classes where specifically for Microsoft own SQL Server, the driver is being retired because (apparently) many customers use third-party drivers. Maybe because they really work better, or maybe because they don't fully trust Microsoft in providing support for a "competing" technology. And this move might prove them right.
The announcement in itself is really minor, from my point of view). The implication I see, though, is that this is another push towards Microsoft .NET lock-in strategy. The company is more than willing to give away the .NET runtime, and even a good portion of the development toolset, but having full control of the platform means pushing developers (not all of them of course, but quite a few) towards a complete Microsoft stack, from Office integration to SQL Server, from Exchange to its own online services. What it wrong about that? Absolutely nothing, from Microsoft's point of view. (for example, I remember a time Sun was trying to convince people they needed a Sparcstation because Java applications were slow).
The problem is that a large number of .NET developers (and also a few of the "luminaries") don't see this lock in. Nothing wrong in using .NET, but don't get just everything Microsoft gives you as a freeby. Everything has a cost, after all. With LINQ for SQL available for SQL Server only (at least, out of the box) and the Oracle driver gone, this is more and more apparent on the database side. But it is not the only case. And before you ask, no, the same is not true if you stick on the native Windows platform, which I consider very open... and on which you can find support (even from Microsoft) for most databases.
PS. Had CodeGear dared stopping to deliver a database driver for a competitor, Delphi developers would have staged a large protest (partially rightfully). I've seen complains for this Microsoft decision, but not really as much. But if I missed them, links would be appreciated.
10 Comments
Microsoft Kills Oracle ADO.NET Driver
The difference is that almost any database vendor offers a ADO/ADO.NET driver for free (at least to customers), while with Delphi or Embarcadero provides a dbExpress driver or one has to buy one - there's no database I know that offers a dbExpress driver, thereby the situation is pretty different. Even the Firebird guys don't offer a dbExpress driver and wait for Delphi to offer one... <g>Comment by Luigi D. Sandon [http://www.sandon.it] on June 22, 22:10
Microsoft Kills Oracle ADO.NET Driver
We will see how "good" this news is. It is a matter of money I think. Hopefully the database vendor will not set the .net world to depricated;-). Usually it makes sense to have a driver from the vendor. I wish all the guys, that do not have experience with oracle client lots of fun and have fun with lot's of coffee when you come to the very detail ... I had some of them. Lock-In. Delphi, Cloud Computing, AMP, Java also locked in. It is the complexity of the solution space serviced by a technology that requires focusing ... this is what we face. Future will let us know, if the clouds will rain on the .net developers. Regards MikeComment by Michael on June 22, 22:11
Microsoft Kills Oracle ADO.NET Driver
Not everything is a sinister plot to demolish the competition! The fact of the matter is that Microsoft Oracle Provider is the worst of all available providers. Most people working on serious applications with Oracle prefer to use Oracle's provider. Microsoft is simply acknowledging there's little point in committing resources to it when customers are preferring other alternatives!Comment by M on June 23, 10:56
Microsoft Kills Oracle ADO.NET Driver
I don't find that strange from Microsoft! this is a typical behavior from them. But the main issue that one day .Net believers will face the same situation when microsoft turn its back to .Net and they became slaves to anything that microsoft produce as compatible with it. till that time I will stick with my beloved Delphi :) cheers, MBComment by Mahmoud Baalbaki on June 23, 12:34
Microsoft Kills Oracle ADO.NET Driver
M, Don't have a mistake, the Oracle ado.net driver from microsoft is the worst intentionally.Comment by FrancisR on June 25, 12:50
Microsoft Kills Oracle ADO.NET Driver
"I wish all the guys, that do not have experience with oracle client lots of fun and have fun with lot's of coffee when you come to the very detail ... I had some of them. " Oh, indeed! Oracle Forms post version 4.5, Oracle Reports, Oracle Portal, etc... I never understood why Oracle even has a place in the market anymore. Apart from the core product, the database, everything is dreadful. And even then ... Ever tried debugging stored procedures in Oracle? There was a time when even Oracle used MS Access to build front-ends for Oracle databases. And without Toad (a Delphi product, I believe) it would be even more miserable.Comment by Ken Knopfli on June 25, 15:03
Microsoft Kills Oracle ADO.NET Driver
Lots of Oracle admin tools are written in Delphi, Quest's Toad, SQLNavigator and Spotlight, Embarcadero's AFAIK, and some others. Oracle has released SQL Developer, but its java based IDE takes much more to start than a native tool like SQL Navigator, for example, and it is much slower to work with. Tools like those show how native code applications can be more powerful than p-code ones. although jitted - and how many Delphi controls - third party ones - are still far better than their counterparts. Anyway, I'd like a 64 bit SQL Navigator... or I am forced to install both 32 and 64 bits clients. However, when it comes to high-end database there are very few choices... anyway, with one of the Delphi tools I have not issues debugging PL/SQL :)Comment by Luigi D. Sandon [http://www.sandon.it] on June 25, 22:13
Microsoft Kills Oracle ADO.NET Driver
Lol @ Lock-In. Seriously, let's recap a few things: * Borland Database Engine * VCL (Delphi/BCB) * VCL.NET (Delphi .NET) * dbExpress (no Firebird/PostgreSQL Drivers for Win32) --- The CodeGear drivers are SKU-limited (even BDE Drivers were like that). * SCCI Version Control Integration (Buy Athlant or GTFO? All the way up to 2007 or later...) I'm pretty sure IBM has their own DB2 driver for .NET. Firebird has their own .NET driver. MySQL has one. PostgreSQL has one. Why does Oracle need Microsoft to write their driver for them? Does IBM or Oracle write SQL Server JDBC drivers for Microsoft? Last time I checked, they didn't: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/aa937724.aspx Stop crying about it. Move on, and stop being a CodeGear fanboi.Comment by Nate on June 28, 08:17
Microsoft Kills Oracle ADO.NET Driver
@Nate: Oracle does not need MS to write a .NET driver - they offer their own which is of course much more integrated than the MS one. They even went much forward, and offer a whole Visual Studio add-on (Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio) to manage, code and debug Oracle stuff within the MS IDE. It was MS interest to offer an Oracle driver not to drive away from Visual Studio the many developers who work with Oracle, if no driver was available (and maybe lure some to SQL Server meanwhile). As now it is MS interest to offer a JDBC driver for SQL Server - and Oracle's being integrated in VS. Anyway, when speaking about databases, it's MS the runner up, not Oracle - that's why they never cared about writing a JDBC driver for SQL Server - but Oracle has gateways to SQL Server to be used in heterogenous data access. The advantage of Delphi is it is not bound to only one data access method. Don't you like BDE or dbExpress? Choose ADO, Zeos, DOA, ODAC, IBExpress, or any other library you like. And sometimes bypassing several layers of code trying to adapt to different DBs is the right choice.Comment by Luigi D. Sandon on June 30, 01:24
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Microsoft Kills Oracle ADO.NET Driver
Comment by Xepol on June 22, 21:23