NDBC - .NET Database Connectivity

NDBC is a complete replacement for Microsoft's ADO.NET database connection classes.

Why create a new database connection library?

Here are a few dislikes I have of ADO.NET.

• ADO.NET does not support generic databases. Other than the very limited support provided by the IDb??? classes, there is no support in ADO.NET to simply change database vendors. The current solution is to use the minimal support provided by IDb. Almost every database driver added to ADO.NET has extra features and they're implemented in different ways.
• ADO.NET does not provide a common exception interface. Each ADO.NET driver derives exceptions either from SystemException or Exception. There is no common exception for simplifying code accross database vendors.
• ADO.NET provides no real support for querying the database schema. The only support they provide is on result sets. You have no ability to find out what columns are available before you run your query.
• ADO.NET is tightly tied around it's DataSet architecture. Not all programs need to use full datasets to simply get a row or two of information and update them.
• Microsoft ships with Microsoft SQL Server and OLEDB support. You have to add on support for ODBC and Oracle. There is no support for other databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL, Interbase, etc. Teams are working on these for the Mono project but other than a couple, they are not being designed to use outside of Mono.

The alternatives?

1. Create a new ADO.NET driver that encapsulates all other ADO.NET drivers.
2. Provide an all-new interface based on the working standard JDBC.

I've decided to implement the second alternative after trying the first one twice. Each time I ran into the same issues of trying to get database information where there was none.

Here are the reasons for basing the new work on JDBC.

• The JDBC metadata classes provide a great deal of information about databases.
• Changing database vendors is as simple as changing your connection string.
• One mechanism for catching exceptions.
• One set of methods for accessing the database. You don't need to no what each library provides at development time. Software can work around database types at runtime.

Goals of this project

• Implement the JDBC standard as close as possible. Changes are being made to replace the thousands of get/set methods with C# properties.
• Provide support for as many database vendors as possible. TDS based MSSQL and Sybase are already started.
• Code as much in C# as possible.
• Produce a library that works with Microsoft .NET and Mono.
• Optionally provide a ADO.NET interface on top so that people can still use their DataSet's and the like.

How can you help?

Pick a database you like to work with and create a driver for it. If you have already done a driver for ADO.NET, then adding a new interface should not be that hard.