Microsoft is Pain
So I’m taking a client/server database course this quarter. Now, I’m no stranger to working with databases. I’ve done a few projects of varying size in MySQL and PHP, most of which I enjoyed thoroughly. (Yes, I’m a database weirdo. Sue me.) PHP’s database access is straightforward and sensible: send SQL statements to the database, and PHP will turn the results into arrays or objects, whichever you prefer.
Microsoft, on the other hand, take the approach of Steamy Pile of Crap.
Cursors? Why on earth do you need to walk forwards and backwards through a dataset? Server-side keysets? Yes, let’s bog down the database server even more.
Seriously, I’ve never had to write so much code to accomplish so little. So many damn ODBC wrapper functions. Sigh.
(I’m done ranting now. I promise.)
It was my understanding that cursors were only necesary if the host language had no way to support multiple rows… Granted, I’ve only ever used/seen php and a smidge of .NET to talk to an oracle server (doesn’t support JOINs! You have to do them by hand. )-: ) and I guess I’ve looked at an access front end talking to the oracle back end… Maybe your cursor woes are why I’ve never seen anyone use Access for anything worth mentioning.