We are really happy to announce that ESUG will sponsor us once again through the ESUG Summer Talk project. This means that we have reached the ESUG expectations and that they still think that relational database access is an important matter in Smalltalk.

One important thing is that we are going to rename the project (we are still working on it) since SqueakDBX runs not only in Squeak but also in Pharo, and there have been even ports to Dolphin. What's the reason for this decision? Because we do not want to couple ourselves to a smalltalk dialect nor to OpenDBX, because our project is much more than that (later I will tell you about our plans). So, these are some of the possible names: ObjectPark, SmallParking, Parktalk, SmallValet, Valetalk, ValetST, NorayTalk, Ballard, Noray and Cruise. Please let us know which one is your favourite or help us find a new one.

Another important subject is the team. There will be three "mentors", Esteban Lorenzano, Diogenes Moreira and myself, Mariano Martinez Peck; and three students: Guillermo Polito, Nicolas Scarcella and Santiago Bragagnolo.

We are open to suggestions and ideas. In addition, we have defined a possible list of actions that I copy at the end of the email.

For the moment, the url remains www.squeakdbx.org and the mailing list [hidden email]

Once again, we want to thank ESUG for their support and trust.

Thank you very much,

SqueakDBX team
 




Possible list of actions:

1) Change SqueakDBX’s name.  

2) Update GLORP version since the actual one is 3 years old.  

Port it again from VisualWorks, create a VW porting tool (may be).
Complete support to Glorp.  Today it works with PostgreSQL, Oracle and MySQL.  Make it work with most databases OpenDBX supports.

3) Create a lightweight solution, alternatively to GLORP.  There are some options:

Make SqueakSave work with SqueakDBX.  SqueakSave developers already contacted us because they wanted to do it. SqueakSave seems to be 20% slower than Glorp but you don't need to write the mappings :)
Adapt Ramon Leon's active record to use an abstract database driver, and create a driver for SqueakDBX.
Port the new Glorp’s kind of active record to Pharo. (included in 2).

4) Write a Pharo By Example 2 chapter based on the card game Stef built ;).

5) Cog compatibility.

6) Use Alien instead of FFI.
Eliot is working on a threaded CogVM. One of the projects of the GSoC of this year was to make something similar to a threaded FFI. What the student did is a modification in Alien (I think) that can be run in a multithreaded envirorment. He worked with Eliot. The idea is when Eliot releases the threaded CogVM, this FFI would work our of the box, and would avoid locking the WHOLE vm while a C function is being invoked (as it happens today with FFI).....So....when that VM is released, we MUST migrate to that).

7) Explore performance issues (maybe with our approach of "In thread execution plugin").

8) Complete integration with OpenDBX. For example, Oracle, for large objects (Clob, Blob, etc) use specific functions. There are specific functions in OpenDBX that have to be used if the database uses specific functions (oracle is the only one for the moment.). We don't manage those functions yet.

9) In this link http://www.squeakdbx.org/Targets%20and%20Features
You can see a list of future possible features like Connection pooling (now it is done!), Prepared statement interface, Store procedures, Escape and avoid of SQL insertion, Authentication support: extends to other methods, not only user/password, Full text support, etc.

-- 
Alan Knight [|], Engineering Manager, Cincom Smalltalk
[hidden email]
[hidden email]
http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com