[Firebird-net-provider] Some comments about future developement

[<car...@te...>]

Hello:

The beta 4 is the last beta release before start the RC stage, i'm 
starting to think in the needs we are going to have after 1.5 release, i 
think we have two mayor needs for the future:


1. ADO.NET 2.0 compatibility. I'm thinking on this for version 2.0 of 
the Firbeird .NET Data Provider.

I'm reviwing the alpha docs of ADO.NET 2.0 and there are a lot of 
internal changes that are going to be needed for match with the new 
architecture of ADO.NET (Documentation of ADO.NET is fairly incomplete 
but it's not bad to be reviewing it yet ;)).

All the actual ADO.NET classes needs changes for match new class 
hierarchy, for example in ADO.NET 2.0:

- SqlConnection inherits from:

    DbConnectionBase, ICloneable, ISqlConnection, IDbConnection, IDisposable

- SqlCommand inherits from:

    DbCommandBase, ICloneable, IDbAsyncCommand, ISqlCommand, IDbCommand, 
IDisposable

- SqlCommandBuilder inherits from:

    DbCommandBuilder

- SqlDataReader inhertits from:

    DbDataReaderBase, IDataReader, IDataRecord, ISqlReader, IDisposable, 
ISqlRecord, ISqlGetTypedData, IGetTypedData

- SqlTransaction inherits from:

    DbTransaction, ISqlTransaction, IDbTransaction, IDisposable

- SqlParameter inherits from:

    DbParameterBase, ICloneable, ISqlParameter, IDbDataParameter, 
IDataParameter

- SqlParameterCollection inherits from:

    DbParameterCollectionBase, ISqlParameterCollection, 
IDataParameterCollection, IList, ICollection, IEnumerable

There are some new classes in the SqlClient of ADO.NET 2.0, some of them 
will be needed of implement in the Firebird .NET Data Provider, until 
now i have found this:

    - ResultSetEnumerator

    - SqlBulkCopyColumnAssociator

    - SqlBulkCopyColumnAssociatorCollection

    - SqlClientFactory (*)

    - SqlDataTable (*)

    - SqlDependency (*)

    - SqlResultSet (*)

    - SqlRecord (**)

    - SqlUpdatableRecord (***)


(*) I think they are needed for implement in the Firebird .NET Data 
Provider as public classes.
(**) I think they are needed for implement in the Firebird .NET Data 
Provider as internal classes.
(***) Has no documentation yet, nut probably will be needed to implement.

There are too some new features, for example SqlConnection has a 
GetSchema ( we have it yet in 1.5 as GetDbSchema but it's a little 
different and it's going to need changes ), SqlCommand has async methods 
for execution.

I will try to continue to review the ADO.NET 2.0 docs.



2. Embbeded server support. For this we have to write a Firebird Client 
Wrapper, if i'm not wrong there two ways for do this:

    1. Using PInvoke.

    2. Using a C++ managed dll.

I see both ways are no easy ;).

I'm thinking on implement this for version 2.0 of the Firebird Provider 
( if i can .. hehe ... i have basic knowledge of C++ and i'm not sure is 
PInvoke is a real option for this ;) ), i want to see a way for abstract 
GDS implementation and Firebird client wrapper for allow to use only one 
set of ADO.NET classes, now the .net provider ships with a single 
assembly and for make this the best way, in first place, will be to use 
custom assemblys for GDS implementations.

Another question i'm thinking on is that more than probably version 2.0 
of the Firebird provider will ship with documentation only for non 
standard ADO.NET classes ( for these classes the documentation of 
SqlClient or other Microsoft provider will be more than good :) ).

Before the 2.0 release there will one or more releases with little 
enhacements and bug fixes if needed.



--
Best regards

Carlso Guzmán Álvarez
Vigo-Spain

P.S: Sorry for the poor english, this is the nig email i have written 
ever in English :)