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by Antonio Cangiano.
Original Post: Python, Django and DB2 Status Update
Feed Title: Zen and the Art of Ruby Programming
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Python 3000’s first alpha release was made available last week, and as to be expected, it gathered a lot of interest from the development community. With Python on everyone’s lips, let’s talk about Python in this post as well.
Python and DB2
Back in March we gathered an overwhelming amount of feedback in regards to IBM’s interest in developing a reliable driver and adapter for Python and Django, just like we did for Ruby and RoR. We considered your feedback and took action. I’m glad to be able to “leak” some news to you: our team in the States has been working hard on an advanced driver whose initial development is about to be completed. A closed beta is expected to take place relatively soon, but not immediately.
The Python DB2 driver will be the stepping stone and we have decided to proceed with the creation of an adapter for SQLAlchemy first, and for the default Django ORM next. Enabling SQLAlchemy and DB2 means going further than just Django. It means automatically providing support for any framework that builds on top of it. The development of these adapters should not require too much time. Building a modern, fast and reliable driver was our number one priority and the most challenging part, but now that that component is almost complete, the rest should be smooth sailing from here on out.
Pythonistas’ reactions
In the last few weeks I’ve received many emails in regards to requests about Python and DB2. I have yet to finish replying to everyone, so I thought I would proceed with a public update. Some of these emails are very interesting because they come from very prepared programmers who are willing to help and have good ideas for creating plugins that exploit the unique features of DB2 like pureXML, DB2 Spatial Extender, and so on. Many people see the big potential of having DB2 working with Python, SQLAlchemy and Django, and are really looking forward to it.
The Rails community seems to be more oriented towards MySQL while the Django/Python one leans towards the historically more feature-rich PostgreSQL. I wonder if this difference explains the wider interest amongst pythonistas in seeing a best-selling, high-quality database like DB2 become available.
DB2 Express-C
As a remainder, for those of you who may not be in the loop, DB2 Express-C is an awesome free version of DB2 that doesn’t pose any limits on your database size, connections or users. You can run it on any server with up to 4GB of RAM and 4 CPU cores (the limit is in the license; the code is essentially the same as that of the more expensive versions). You also get native XML storage and querying, high performances and endless scalability. It won’t cost you a cent, but should you require it, you can optionally purchase one year support and get High Availability Disaster Recovery as well at a very competitive price per server.
There is a bigger surprise in the making, and this should be available in a month or so. However I’m absolutely not able to talk about it for the time being, so I’ll have to leave you hanging. As usual, it will be covered in this blog in due time, and it’s sure to please many people, so please feel free to subscribe to this blog by feed or by email if you haven’t done so already.
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Python 3000’s first alpha release was made 