Lesson 7, is ODBC Dead, NOT at all.

Question

From Microsoft. I have underlined the key words so hope that yo understand what they mean. What is MSDASQL? MSDASQL is an OLEDB provider that allows applications built on OLEDB and ADO (which uses OLEDB internally) to access data sources through an ODBC driver instead of a database. MSDASQL ships with the Windows Operating System, and Longhorn Beta 3 is the first Windows release to include a 64-bit version of MSDASQL. In other words MSDASQL(oledb and ado) uses ODBC to connect with databases, does this look like Microsoft is going to discontinue support for ODBC, in the near future, hardly, all that Microsoft have dine is what they have always done and that is to introduce yet another layer to confuse people with and make something that is efficient, in efficient. How many people here know that Visual Basic was NOT a Microsoft product when it was developed? They turned a good product into a resource hungry elephant.

theLizard · Answer

Alan Cooper is the father of Visual basic, without him, there would probably not be a current version of visual basic and it was designed to be an end user product not a programmers tool but that's evolution and the power of Microsoft to buy out its competitors just like Hot Mail. Of course Visual Basic is an evolution of QBasic and QBasic is an Evolution of Basic and C++ is an evolution of C , C# is an evolution of what Sam, lets hear your expert opinion on this. Hell Sam even you are an evolution of something, everything evolves Sam except maybe ideas from you. Like taking other people's code, manipulating it then call it your own and putting it in articles, you know what I mean, don't you Sam.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

See "Why I am called "the Father of Visual Basic" ". It is an interesting story, and it makes it very clear that the VB language is an evolution of Microsoft's QuickBasic. Until Microsoft bought Tripod/Ruby, the GUI software that became the VB GUI did not support Basic and was not designed to be an IDE for any language.

theLizard · Answer

Sam, FYI, Yes, I am saying that Microsoft did NOT develop Visual Basic and that is a fact. and thse areMicrosofts words not mine. MSDASQL is an OLEDB provider that allows applications built on OLEDB and ADO (which uses OLEDB internally) to access data sources through an ODBC driver instead of a database. MSDASQL ships with the Windows Operating System, and Longhorn Beta 3 is the first Windows release to include a 64-bit version of MSDASQL. MSDASQL ships with the Windows Operating System, and Longhorn Beta 3 is the first Windows release to include a 64-bit version of MSDASQL. ODBC as I said is a standard, if Microsoft wants to depricate it so be it, that does NOT mean ODBC is not used in 64bit windows. Until every other back end database stops using ODBC and when ALL applications using using databases that use ODBC have gone the way of the DODO then and only then is ODBC dead it will be around for a long time to come. Finally, I know my way is NOT always the best way and I have said it here before there is always a better way of doing things. I accept that people come up with better answers and that is what it is all about but when I see a person asking questions in more than 1 thread that relates to the same issue and people give answers that yes works and some one comes along and confuses the issue by literally saying that the answers he got would be useless because the provider he has been shown to use for his problem is dead. This to me is about three or 4 days of wasted time for that poor fella don't you agree?

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Are you saying that all ADO providers use ODBC? What about OLE/DB, do all the OLE/DB providers use ODBC? Windows 7 does not install a 64-bit version of ODBC; are you saying that 64-bit applications in Windows 7 cannot use databases? If you know how to use ODBC in 64-bit applications in Windows 7 without installing something separately, then you should provide that information instead of contiuously denying that Microsoft has stated the intnet to deprecate ODBC. Also, I thought that VB was an interactive Windows version of QBasic; are you saying that the VB language was not initially developed by Microsoft?