Hello.
I'm a new poster to this list, and I find this topic fascinating.
Tim Starling escribió:
Yes. We already have some degree of abstraction in our
SQL files in the
form of comments like /*$wgDBTableOptions*/. I'm not sure what the best
way to do it is, but here are my ideas:
1. Extend that comments system
2. Introduce an SQL-like language that can be translated to real SQL
3. Introduce an entirely new data definition language, say XML-based
I believe a better solution is to design a domain-specific language, an
idea not very different from your first one.
This DSL would model the interaction between the application and the DB
as it is now, and would be designed to evolve. That's it.
Your other ideas aim to more general-purpose solutions. I believe those
would be harder to develop, more complex, and not as useful.
The idea of 1 is to maintain backwards compatibility
for scripts that want
to feed SQL files directly into a MySQL database. But it's the least
flexible because it would get really ugly really fast as you add more
features.
If the DSL is well designed, new features would potentially require new
domain-specific language elements to be added, and none to be removed.
If it is badly designed, however, the end result is usually like you
describe. But it's not an inescapable end.
If you like the idea, I can develop a throwaway testbed for an embryonic
DSL, to clearly see if it is suitable.
Best regards.