Removal of Oraperl from DBD::Oracle?

[Yanick Champoux]

Hi all,

For a long time now, the documentation of DBD::Oracle had been
warning that Oraperl is deprecated. A few releases back, I ratcheted up
the warning and mentioned that Oraperl would be dropped from the
DBD::Oracle distro in the new year, after v1.38.

And now that the new year and v1.38 are upon us, I'm thinking on
acting on the promise. But before I do, wisdom begs me to consult the
dbi hivemind. Sooo... Can anybody know of anyone/anything who would be
impacted (negatively) by the removal of said Oraperl?

Joy,
`/anick

[Jared Still]

I would think being forced to quit using Oraperl would be a good thing?  :)

But seriously, when was the last time anyone of heard of someone using Oraperl,

or asking questions about it?

I have some really old (good) stuff that uses Oraperl.  Should I ever want to use 

it again I would most definitely convert to DBD::Oracle.

At the time I wrote those scripts (1995!) , DBD::Oracle was new and scary.  :)

Jared

--

Jared Still

Sr. DBA

The Pythian Group

 

--
Pythian proud winner of Oracle North America Titan Award for Exadata Solution...watch the video on pythian.com

[Yanick Champoux]

On 01/04/12 14:33, Jared Still wrote:
> I would think being forced to quit using Oraperl would be a good
> thing? :)

I tend to agree. But I had to ask before I pull that rug off from
everyone's feet, just in case someone is still actually standing on it. :-)

>
> But seriously, when was the last time anyone of heard of someone using
> Oraperl,
> or asking questions about it?

I googled a little bit, and from what I can see, people were
already told that Oraperl is old and deprecated in... 2001. Didn't get
any better after that. :-)

>
> I have some really old (good) stuff that uses Oraperl. Should I ever
> want to use
> it again I would most definitely convert to DBD::Oracle.
>
> At the time I wrote those scripts (1995!) , DBD::Oracle was new and
> scary. :)

Well, it's still scary aplenty, but I daresay that by now, we have
the 'new' mitigated. :-)

Joy,
`/anick

[Yanick Champoux]

On 01/05/12 05:59, Charles Jardine wrote:
> I am completely in favour of the abolition of oraperl, but
> I think it would be kind to start with a version which
> emits a warning message from the main line of Oraperl.pm,
> so any unfortunate end users of oraperl will have some
> time to convert, or seek advice.

Makes perfect sense. I'll inject the warning in the next release,
with a, say, six month warning period (less than that would probably be
deemed to fast, and more than that would cause the trigger finger to
cramp before it can do the deed)?

Thanks for the suggestion!
`/anick

[Tim Bunce]

I wouldn't mention a specific timeframe. Just say that Oraperl was
deprecated years ago, will be removed in a near-future release, and any
scripts using it should be rewritten to use DBI calls.

Then forget about it. There's no reason to actually remove it soon and
the longer it's not removed the more likely the message is to reach its
intended audience (who tend to upgrade rarely).

Tim.

[Yanick Champoux]

On 12-01-10 03:25 AM, Tim Bunce wrote:
> I wouldn't mention a specific timeframe. Just say that Oraperl was
> deprecated years ago, will be removed in a near-future release, and any
> scripts using it should be rewritten to use DBI calls.
>
> Then forget about it. There's no reason to actually remove it soon and
> the longer it's not removed the more likely the message is to reach its
> intended audience (who tend to upgrade rarely).

I can do that, no problem. The only thing I'm afraid of, is that by
not giving a specific timeframe, human psychology will do what human
psychology does and people will tend to disregard the deprecation
notice. :-)

But you are right, there is no rush to actually remove the module
itself, and perhaps the warning alone will do its job of nudging most of
the last stragglers toward DBI.

Joy,
`/anick

[Yanick Champoux]

On 12-01-10 09:47 PM, Darren Duncan wrote:
>
> After the first release of Oraperl in a separate distro, as long as you
> don't change something in DBD::Oracle that breaks the API that Oraperl
> depends on, you never have to release another version of Oraperl itself
> again.

I thought about that option as well, but I don't think it buys us
anything. For as long as DBD::Oracle doesn't break Oraperl, to have the
latter bundled with the former doesn't require any additional work, and
doesn't hurt. And when DBD::Oracle will finally break Oraperl, having
Oraperl in its own distribution means that for it to work you'll have to
manually install a non-latest version of Oracle for it to work -- if
it's still bundled with DBD::Oracle, 'cpanm Oraperl' will do the right
thing and fetch the last version of DBD::Oracle that includes, and
supports Oraperl.

Joy,
`/anick