Web Application Frameworks and IDS

Submitted by eherber on Fri, 2009-08-07 11:37


Open Source Web Application Frameworks like PHP Cake, Ruby on Rails, Python Django or Perl Catalyst are becoming more and more popular among web developers. Even in the enterprise world, that is dominated by Java, those frameworks are gaining ground as they combine the simpleness and power of a scripting language with a strong development framework.

Looking at the IBM support for IDS for those frameworks, I discovered the following. Please comment if you have additional information/updates:

PHP Cake

Project Website: http://cakephp.org

This framework gets a lot of attention in the PHP world. However currently it doesn't seem to work with IDS. At least the documentation doesn't mention Informix:

However there exists a valid alternative called Zend Core for IBM that supports IDS.

Ruby on Rails

Project Website: http://rubyonrails.org

There is an official IBM_DB adapter released by IBM. According to the release notes it supports IDS 11.10 and beyond in combination with the IBM DataServer client:

There is also an alternative Ruby/Informix adapter developed by Gerardo Santana. However I don't know what the current state of this adapter is with respect to the supported IDS version and Ruby on Rails.

Perl Catalyst

Project Website: http://www.catalystframework.org/

According to the Catalyst Project Website this framework is quite flexible regarding the database support. Either Class::DBI or DBIx::Class in combination with Jonathan's excellent DBD::Informix driver should do the job.

Python Django

Project Website: http://www.djangoproject.com/

There exists an official IBM supported driver for Python called ibm-db that claims that it supports both IBM data servers:

"ibm-db - Python support for IBM Data Servers: DB2 and Informix IDS"

However taking a deeper look at the Readme document it states that at least the current Django adapter only supports DB2 LUW. IDS is listed as Future Supported Database (:-

I'm asking myself how could it be, that an IBM paid developer team is not able to release an adapter, that supports both major IBM data servers (that speak both DRDA and could be accessed with a uniform driver) at the same time. As always it seems that DB2 is given preference and people looking for Informix support are "discriminated" (:-

There is an alternative Python/IDS adapter developed by Carsten Haese. However I don't know what the current state of this adapter is with respect to the supported IDS versions and Python/Django.

There is also a dedicated IBM website that gives an overview about Application Development and IDS:

But this is still insufficient from my point of view. IBM won't attract a single developer for Informix with those impersonal and inadequate websites. What we need is:

  1. An Informix focussed developer program combined with an appealing, bracing Website
  2. An IDS Express Community Edition (like the DB2 offering) as an attractive choice for startups and new developments

IBM, I would be happy to support you regarding the first point. But please consider that the "best things in live are not always free" :-) So if you are really interested to push Informix forward, please contact me.