I didn’t realise that OpenOffice.org had a database program. Sounds like wiring up all the ODBC stuff is a hassle though.
In the introduction, McCreesh writes about OpenOffice.org 1.0’s “best kept secret” — that secret being the fact that hidden away inside, completely unknown to most OpenOffice users, is a user-friendly front end for databases that is “a Microsoft Access (and more) equivalent.”
Linux World Australia has in article on Firebird. Firebird rose from the ashes of Borland’s Interbase, and sounds promising.
How does it differ to PostgreSQL and MYSQL?
They are all different to one another. PostgreSQL and Firebird tend to have roughly the same catchment - scalable client/server. MySQL has its niche as a back-end to read-mostly Web application servers. Firebird is extremely well supported with data connectivity components, which is important to developers using the Borland integrated development tools on Linux and Windows. It’s very robust and easy to administer, which is important to sys admins who like to sleep at home and go sailing at the weekend. It’s also truly cross-platform - you create a backup on one platform and restore it to any other.
I’ll be sure to look at it when I’m choosing a Linux database back ends.
Quite a few people have blogged Tim Perdue’s Moving Logic Into the Database article. Its a reasonable tutorial on using triggers in PostgreSQL to give more control over your data. Worth a read.
As my programming skills have improved over the years, I find myself demanding more precise and guaranteed control over my data. Simply inserting into the database and hoping for the best is not good enough anymore. Using transactions and foreign keys are good first steps in ensuring data integrity, but with some of the more advanced databases, you can go further still and move programming logic into the database itself, stripping it from your PHP code.
Linux Productivity Magazine has a series of articles about PostgreSQL which looks like its worth a read.
Linux World Australia takes a look at open source databases, and pretty much wraps up what I’d sort of figured.
I wonder how much of the XML support by databases is a non-issue though. Do many people use these features, or do they query and write their own XML? I’d prefer the latter approach personally, which makes open source DB’s more suitable than the article implies.
We’re starting to use MySQl for some internal apps as part of a general Linux move, and I’d like to onvestigate Postgress further at some stage with a view to offering it as an alternative to MS SQL Server to some our bigger customers. at the same time the Embedded MySQL approach would suit some requiresments even better 9ie. demo CD’s, etc).
