I have been out of classic ASP for way too long OR if you needed proof that ASP.Net was better.
So I haven't blogged all that much since I've had my head buried in classic ASP. We are converting one of our larger systems to use Oracle now. Some of you may not be all that impressed but moving a SQL Server specific application to Oracle has been nothing but a nightmare.
So far there have been two major road blocks in a smooth conversion:
1. Data types. Holy Crap. SQLBit is not valid in Oracle so all the places that that was infered in the ASP code need to be cbool'd everywhere. Not a big deal. Now I'm coming across an issue where if you don't define the types in the REF CURSOR that is being returned you get all strings back. Also great for doing matching. I think I've been dealing with Type Mismatch errors for the past 3 weeks. Hell even some nulls are coming back as a single space instead of Null. *sarcasm* This is probably the most fun of the two *sarcasm*.
2. Syntax. Especially in the stored procedure realm. For Example:
SQL Server Version: m_ADOCommand.CommandText = "sp_DoThisThing @param1 = 'this is', @param2 = 'so easy'" Oracle Version: m_ADOCommand.CommandText = "{CALL sp_DoThisThing('this really', 'sucks bad')}"
Nothing too intense about this right? Not really, it only comes into play with Out params that aren't REF CURSORS'. We have a need for (what I call) "single line" syntax for calling SP's. We don't use the command object in the entire app ( not my choice ). And when your talking about alot of this code being generated straight from a data dictionary it's also not very easy to retrofit. So a re-write isn't an option. Also since we aren't using a Command object we can only return REF CURSORS with values even for single values that need to be returned. There just isn't a way in "single line" syntax for you to return an output parameter. It will just spit out an error about not using the right amount of parameters.
It's not all bad, we have been quite ahead of the schedule with about 70% of conversion done so far. Not bad for 1 dev and 1 dba and 75k+ lines of code.
I've just been wishing for something like the ADO.Net stuff I've been doing for the past 2 years where I've got it so I can just drop in a new provider and everything works. But until I get this converted I won't be able to taste the wonder of ASP/ADO.net. So if anyone has any additional info that may help me get back to the wonderful world of .Net it would be appreciated. And if anyone is looking to convert a current Classic ASP to ASP.Net, just do it. It'll be less of a headache I'm sure.