[ANN] - SqueakDBX first stable version 1.0!!!

Hi folks:

After a continuous work since January 08, we are very glad to announce
our first stable version of SqueakDBX.

For those who don't know what this is about, the aim of this project
is to build an OpenDBX
(http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/OpenDBX/) wrapper which
will allow users to perform relational database operations (DDL, DML
and SQL) through a truly open source library. Through this feature,
the squeak community will hopefully be able to interact with major
database engines, such as Oracle and SQL Server, besides those which
are open source, like PostgreSQL, MySQL or Sqlite. Moreover, by
integrating this with GLORP (http://www.glorp.org/), will allow us to
generate a complete and open source solution to relational data base
access.

Why did we do squeakDBX?

reeThere are several approaches to persistence in Squeak, some very
interesting: OODB like Gemstone and magma, image, CouchDB or TokyoT/C,
and so on. All of this options get sense if you can actually decide
the way you will persist your objects.

However, this is not something that happens very frequently.
FREQUENTLY, the client (the one who pays you for making the software)
requires you to use a particular persistence strategy (RDBMS). Not
only that, but also a database in particular (like Oracle, MS SQL, and
so on). They have lots of reasons: they already have license for it,
they have support and companies for it, they know SQL, they want to do
selects, legacy systems, and so on. But Squeak only provides drivers
for MySQL and PostgreSQL natively, so... what would you do in the rest
of the cases? move to another language? OK, we don't. We want to
program systems in Squeak.

If you know about SqueakDBX you can just see changelog here:
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6109; If you don't, you should continue
reading ;)

SqueakDBX features:

-Cross-platform support: Linux, Windows (using MinGW) and Mac. See
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6108
-Runs on Squeak and Pharo.
-Mini VM blocks when using FFI (asynchronous queries). See
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6060#External%20call%20implementation.
-Own SqueakDBX plugin (experimental). Ability to easily change the
external call strategy (FFI or our own plugin).
-Support for: Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MS SQL Server, ODBC and SQLite3
-Transactional concept: begin transaction, commit and rollback. See
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6071
-Mappings from String to specific types in selects. See
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6075
-Special OpenDBX options: multistatements, encryption, compression,
paged results, MySQL modes, and more. See
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6068
-Automated database connection ralease (although manual disconnection
is recommended ;-)
-Automated results retrieving in order to do another query, after
doing a query and not iterating ALL results
-Lots of unit tests that buck up our project ;-) (85 right now). See
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6077.
-Lots of benchmarks and comparison with native drivers (PostgreSQL and
MySQL). See http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6063.
-Error handling: Not only errors, but levels associated with an error
in order to avoid FFI calls (if you get a fatal error, it has no sense
to do another query and the resources must be free). See
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6076
-Query timeout (this is very useful for web applications) and page
size can be set for each query. See http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6069
-Very completed documentation in wiki and getting started.
-Code critics and SwaLint were run several times.
-Good design (at least all the major refactors demonstrated that).

Full documentation, installation and getting started instructions can
be found at wiki page: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6052 . We spent a
lot of time in it. It has all the information you may need and is in
continuos development.

Benchmarks: We have a lot of SqueakDBX benchmarks and also some for
native squeak drivers (PostgreSQL and MySQL) and SqueakDBX seems to be
faster than both of them. You can read more here:
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6063

Packages can be installed from Universe (3.10) or SqueakMap. Current
version is 1.0. Sources can be download from SqueakSource
http://www.squeaksource.com/SqueakDBX (it requires FFI installed).
OpenDBX version: 1.4.

Remember that you can compile OpenDBX by yourself or use precompiled
binaries. For more information please read:
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6129.

GLORP integration: Actually, this may include two parts:

1) The integration of GLORP with squeak is completely hardcoded with
PostgreSQL native driver. Because of this, first we will do a refactor
in GLORP in order to enable it to support different drivers. We will
create a PostgreSQL driver with the things that GLORP already has. We
invited Alan Night to have dinner with us when he came to Argentina.
We told him our ideas and discuss for a while till we got a first
design of this refactor. We have already started this part.
2) Create a SqueakDBX driver for GLORP just like the one we are
planning to do for PostgreSQL.

The last squeak port of GLORP is very old and there is nobody to do
it. A friend of us, Diogenes Moreira, has accepted this job, so,
thanks to him, we hope to have latest GLORP releases in Squeak.
You can see our Glorp progress here: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6132

Help is always wanted. We would really appreciate if you:

-Give us opinions, comments, ideas, new features, complaints and so on.
-Tell us if you find a bug.
-Tell us if you test SqueakDBX with other RDMBS or OS different from
the ones we tested. Just to know if it works or not :)

If you try SqueakDBX and you write something somewhere like a blog,
let us know. We have this link: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6131
where we put useful links for all the people.

Special thanks to:

-ESUG, for supporting us through Summer of Talk 08;

-To Norbert (author of openDBX) for his help and to all the people who
tested it and help us.

Cheers,

SqueakDBX team
_______________________________________________
Announcements and News from the Squeak Community
Squeak: http://squeak.org/
[hidden email]
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/announcements