[udig-devel] One database plugin that rules them all?

[Matthias Basler]

Jesse wrote:

> Geotools has a MySQL datastore implementation but uDig does not yet  
> have the plugin that wraps the datastore.  In order for uDig to load  
> MySQL data the plugin needs to be made.  It is a simple job and by  
> copying the Postgis plugin and change the references to the MySQL  
> datastore you will be able to get one running.

Reading your lines I got a thought that I just want to share with you:

Is it possible (or maybe even favourable) to have ONE catalog plugin that copes with all kinds of spatial databases: PostGIS, Oracle Spatial, MySQL Spatial, DB2 and possibly others?

>From my naive, UI centric perspective this has following advantages:
- Consistent UI. There would only be one connection parameters dialog (and only one set of Strings to translate, btw.)
- Easy for user: The type of database would just be one more parameter for the connection dialog. Common sense parameters like the port can still be set automatically depending on the user's choice.
- Reduces redundancy. I could imagine that there is some shared code accessing all these databases. 
- Fewer plugins, less management overhead: quicker checkout, clean, build, commit, run, ... :-)

Well, I'm not deep enough inside the matter to judge well about the spatial DB access behind the scenes. But a lot of other apps (including my own) have a generic UI and handling for all database types. (But of course, most do not access the spatial extensions.)

Comments?
-- 
Matthias Basler
matthiasbasler at earthflight.org