Why did etc.c.odbc move to core.sys.windows?

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On 5/26/21 7:13 AM, Petar Kirov [ZombineDev] wrote:
> On Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 10:35:16 UTC, singingbush wrote:
>> On Sunday, 23 May 2021 at 03:31:27 UTC, Paul Backus wrote:
>>> On Sunday, 23 May 2021 at 01:22:19 UTC, singingbush wrote:
>>>> The phobos documentation states that the odbc modules:
>>>>
>>>> etc.c.odbc.sql
>>>> etc.c.odbc.sqlext
>>>> etc.c.odbc.sqltypes
>>>> etc.c.odbc.sqlucode
>>>>
>>>> will be removed in Feb 2022 and I should instead use 
>>>> `core.sys.windows` but ODBC isn't a Windows only thing so this seems 
>>>> a bit odd.
>>>
>>> I'm guessing it's because Windows is the only OS that ships these 
>>> header files as part of the base installation. On Linux, they're 
>>> provided by a third-party package (e.g. on Debian it's `libodbc`).
>>
>> For me that doesn't indicate that it should be in `core.sys.windows`, 
>> it indicates that either:
>>
>> A: The installers for other platforms need to ensure appropriate 
>> dependencies are installed
>> B: odbc has no business being in core D language and should just be 
>> something that needs building independently, probably as a dub package.
> 
> I'd say B. As far as I am aware, none of the currently active Phobos 
> contributors is interested in ODBC, so it is a disservice to our users 
> to claim that this functionality is supported. It should be moved to 
> separate repo maintained by people who actually use it.

I agree.

A good path forward is for someone to create a replacement on dub, and 
then you can depend on that library.

-Steve