[Zope3-dev] Re: [Zope-DB] Relational Databases in Zope 2 and Zope 3

[Luciano Ramalho]

On Tuesday 29 June 2004 05:22, Smith, Neil (Worcester) wrote:
> The point of the dtml-sqlgroup and dtml-sqltest is surely to provide a nice
> way of handling the case where you don't pass in the parameter, so it
> doesn't render the WHERE, AND, = etc.  And it does this quite well.

Exactly. This is a very common case, when you offer users a "query by example" 
interface, where they fill only the fields they want, and the application 
builds a suitable query.

The combination of <dtml-sqlgroup> and <dtml-sqltest> is the best solution to 
this problem that I have ever seen. Any other solution that I have seen is 
much LESS readable and maintainable than <dtml-sqlgroup> and <dtml-sqltest>.

I also understand the limitations of using SQL directly at that level, and the 
benefits of and object-relational bridge, or even better, using a pure 
object-oriented approach whenever feasible. But SQL is not going away anytime 
soon, and often the best way of integrating a legacy database into a Zope 
application to be pragmatic and just use SQL methods.

--
Luciano