getting the right abstraction from your database abstraction layer

jeremy zawodny rails against database abstraction layers, particularly those that aim to provide database independence. the abstraction layer that i use is really just aimed at making it so i can do more with less code. it’s inspired a bit by the PEAR DB layer, but without the database independence cruft. it means i can write $db->get_assoc("SELECT foo, bar FROM users WHERE id = ?", $id) instead of having the same four lines of query building and row fetching all over the place.

this is actually the object-oriented version of the procedural version of this that i used to use. i needed to be able to use it in situations where i may have multiple connections to different databases open, so the old abstraction layer got painted with a thin OO veneer. the mysql extension’s handling of a default connection is useful for the lazy programmer, but doesn’t mix well with functions that take a variable number of arguments.