FlameRobin 0.7.1 released

Windows (setup & zip), Linux (gtk1 &. gtk2), Mac OS X and source packages are available for download. Read more here, changelog included

Firebird snapshot builds

From Dmitry Yemanov:

For those who's not yet aware - Linux x86 snapshot builds are available at http://www.dqteam.com/fb2/. They include a few recent builds of the Firebird 2.0 release candidate as well as builds from the HEAD branch (where new development happens). Win32 snapshot builds (Firebird 2.0 only) are still here. Snapshots are intended for Firebird developers and experienced beta testers. These builds are untested and provided with no guarantees.

Firebird 2.0 Release Candidate 2 for Win32 is Released

The Firebird Project is pleased to announce the second release
candidate of Firebird 2.0, for final testing. The binary kits for Win32
have been uploaded and should be available soon.

FirebirdClient v2.0 Release Candidate 4

FirebirdClient v2.0 Release Candidate 4 is available for download.

Download information can be found here:

http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=files&id=netprovider

· Release Candidate 4 ( 2006-05-15 ) ·

( Please review the changelog for details )

Bug Fixes:

- Fixed bug in Domains schema.

Changes:

- Changed info calls reponse length handling to handle responses
with a small size than the requested one.

- Changed validations on FbCommand.CommandText property.

FlameRobin 0.7.0 Released!

0.7.0 (win32 setup) is out.
The other kits will be done soon.

Firebird 2.0 Release Candidate 2 is Released (Linux Builds Only Currently)

The Firebird Project is pleased to announce the second release
candidate of Firebird 2.0, for final testing. The Source tarball
and the binary kits for Linux have been uploaded and should be available
soon. There will be a delay with the Windows kits so please be patient.

http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=files&id=fb2_rc2

Regards.
Firebird Project

FIBPlus V6.4.1 with Delphi 2006 support

FIBPlus V6.4.1 is available for download. This new version includes Delphi 2006 support and several bug-fixes for V6.4. Please read the release notes for more details.

EMS software for Interbase or Firebird with a 15% discount

EMS announce a special May offer, this offer allows you to purchase any EMS software for Interbase or Firebird with a 15% discount. The offer is valid for only 15 days.

Why Microsoft will fail

Toorg's Tales mentions Firebird.

Firebird: Improved remote protocol

Dmitry Yemanov reports:

The remote protocol has been slightly improved to perform better in slow networks. In order to achieve this, more advanced packets batching is now performed, also there are some buffer transmission optimizations. In a real world test scenario, these changes showed about 50% less API roundtrips, thus causing about 40% less TCP roundtrips. Hopefully, this is an improvement some our users could benefit from (mostly it should affect over-the-internet database access).

This work has been committed into the HEAD branch to be included into the next Firebird version. Further protocol improvements are also planned.

Borland Unveils New Organizational Structure

More, "interesting" news from Borland today: "Borland Unveils New Organizational Structure"

And, Nick Hodges have few words to say:

" What I do know is that we Delphi people need to start realizing that this isn't something for us to be concerned about anymore. Borland and DevCo are de facto separate entities -- soon to be de jure separate. It's been a long time, and it will likely take some getting used to, but Borland's fate really isn't ours anymore. While I'm sure we all wish Borland well, DevCo is on a separate path, doing separate things, with a different market and a separate business model to follow. Borland laying off peole doesn't really seem to affect DevCo. It appears as though DevCo is pressing forward."

Morfik on ZDNet

ZDNet blog brings article about Morfik WebOS, wich uses Firebird 2.0 as its official database. WebOS is the the next big thing in web app development, raising the level of abstraction above the level that PHP and AJAX have achieved. With WebOS you can write very advanced web applications, very easy, very fast and very robust. No wonder it picks FB as its default database choice. Read more

David Intersimone on Borland spin-out "DevCo"

The leadership team of DevCo includes: Nigel Brown, Michael Swindell, Steve Todd, Alan Bauer, Ben Netick, and David Intersimone. They have 3-year roadmaps for Delphi, JBuilder, and Interbase. The size of DevCo will be ~250-300 at the start, i.e. about 20% of Borland's workforce. "Develop" has $100 mln in sales, about 30% of the total. Sounds like "DevCo" will be quite profitable from the start.

Read more

Common Firebird Errors and Firebird .NET Provider Exceptions

Common Firebird Errors and Firebird .NET Provider Exceptions

Jim outlines Falcon

Jim outlined Falcon at the MySQL user conference. All the Firebird concepts are in place: single file paged storage, indexes hold no data, self-tuning, multi-versioning, careful write, etc. The main design difference with Firebird is that record versions are kept in memory, with overflow to disk, i.e. the 'sweeper' thread is replaced by a 'writer' thread. Falcon is due to appear in Q3, which makes it a 90-day project .. just like Vulcan.

Read more

The Open Source Venture Capital Universe

Sys-Con discusses how VC investments in Open Source have worked and are working. Says one VC: "What I find most compelling in the OSS business models is the recent shift from the support- and services-based revenue models to the commercial open source. In the commercial open source model, about 80 percent of the product functionality is released as OSS, which guarantees a great product for most customers. The remaining 20 percent of functionality, which is useful to only large customers, is released as a low cost commercial product." Like Fyracle, you mean?

Read more

LinuxDevices on Firebird

Although most Firebird users deploy on Windows, the Linux community is increasingly discovering the benefits of this database system: easy, compact, powerful. LinuxDevices reports.

Read more

Mickos critical of 'crippled' closed-source databases

MySQL CEO Mickos told conference delegates: "There's no freedom in crippleware... I learned when I moved to the US there's no such thing as a free lunch. If a company that gives you a free version is closed source, they gain nothing unless you upgrade to the expensive version." At the same time MySQL are partnering with Microsoft, IBM's DB2 division and Oracle. Who's paying for that lunch?

Read more

Jim Starkey: Introducing Falcon (Storage Engine for MySQL)

Last session of the MySQL UC is Jim Starkey giving an introduction to the new Falcon storage engine. Jim is an icon in the database field, was the creator of MVCC and the BLOB data type. There’s a can of Falcon beer for anyone who asks a good question.

Read the Falcon intro

[Ed :When i read the word Falcon i always associate it with Millennium Falcon, Yes Jim is fighting a good cause against evil empire ]

Firebird used at siemens.com

Firebird seems to be used in embedded area at siemens (amd mips processors) .
You can follow the mips porting thread on sf.net

falcon will rock on fulltext searches (mysql)

via Jeremy's blog

The good news is that the recently announced falcon storage engine should have a FULLTEXT engine that rocks. After explaining the situation a bit more, we decided that in the mean time a 64-bit MySQL with a ton of RAM is probably the only viable solution.

Xul for thought: Strange Blog behaviour and Firebird Embedded Database on Linux

[ED:Don't know what was the solution to his problems , at least firebird embedded is used by someone ;)]

Read more at xullicious.blogspot.com...

Nigel Brown talks about IDEs future

Nigel Brown, "DevCo" general manager discusses some of the plans for Delphi and the JBuilder. Very interesting.

You can find the full interview on The Register. You can also find comments from Allen Bauer, Nick Hodges (hey, Nick, you forgot the title!), and people in the newsgroups (using Marco Cantu's AJAX frontend).

What's my take? I find it very interesting and it sheds a new light on the way DevCo could sell Delphi. They want to take again the lead over Microsoft ("Our goal is to get back to that scenario where we are leading"), invest more moeny in the IDE tools, rehire "engineers and architects who were at the forefront of developing languages", mentions an "installed base of three million developers", wants to start "making money from support and added services".

New SQL functions

Dmitry Yemanov writes:

Implementation of a new aggregate function LIST has been committed into the HEAD branch. It's one of the remaining changes that weren't ported from the Yaffil codebase yet. There are other built-in functions to port, they will be discussed in firebird-devel later this week.

Syntax: LIST ( [DISTINCT] value [ , delimiter ] )

Semantics is similar to the LIST function in Sybase SQL Anywhere and GROUP_CONCAT function in MySQL, with the exception of the ORDER BY clause which is not supported yet.

Also, Adriano dos Santos Fernandes has implemented the new REPLACE function (also about to be committed into HEAD). It can be considered a simplified version of the standard MERGE statement, which allows conditional INSERT or UPDATE operation based on a primary key match.

Syntax: REPLACE INTO table [ ( column_list ) ] VALUES ( value_list )
[ RETURNING column_list [ INTO variable_list ] ]
The SQL99-compliant MERGE statement is also planned for implementation in the future.

Read more

More info about Falcon

Here you can find more information about the new MySQL engine. Falcon is the new “toy” from Jim Starkey

Firebird Foundation blog

FF just started its own blog. You can check the first posts here.

if you can’t connect to localhost with firebird2 rc1

Problem is the installer for firebird 2.0 rc1 currently changes permissions on /etc/services file to 600 and permisions need to be 644.

This has been posted on Firebird Devel List and is patched.
I will repost it here so others have less problems finding it.

REPOST FROM Firebird Devel List

[See remaining text…]

The FB-2-beta2 still changes the access rights to
/etc/services.

I finally figured out why my java (after
fb-installation) failed to work with a network. This
failure had nothing to with fb, even a simple
InetAddress.getByName(”localhost”);
failed.

The reason is, that the install process sets the access
rights to /etc/services from 0644 to 0600!

This prevented Java to access the network (except for
user root).

Using Firebird with SME Server 7.O (an modified version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux)

Here are the instructions to run firebird on SME Server

Firebird bigger than MySQL on Windows

Marten Mikos says that 40% of MySQL is on Windows. Taking an installed base of 5 mln, this means about 2 mln on Windows. Firebird is 70..80% on Windows, so >2 mln. Marten further wants to be partners with Microsoft. "Hi Bill, I've just hired Firebird's Jim Starkey to write Falcon and compete with SQLServer head-on. Want to be friends?"

Read more here

Birds, Dolphins and now… Falcons (isn’t Falcon a bird?)

“At the MySQL’s fourth annual users conference, Jim Starkey, a database trailblazer with InterBase and currently a MySQL senior software architect, will discuss MySQL’s developing storage engine, code-named Falcon, said Zack Urlocker, executive vice president of marketing Cupertino, Calif.-based MySQL. The conference kicks off Monday in Santa Clara, Calif.” - Read more here.

Linux SS new install package - mainly for slackware

Alex Peshkov writes:

I’ve done some changes regarding SS installation. This mainly deals with
Slackware support, but some changes concerning another things are also
done. Who interested, may try Snapshot builds from
http://www.insi.yaroslavl.ru/fb/.

Creating Firebird database programatically in delphi

Today my colleague asked me the question, “How to create FB database programatically from Delphi?”. Well, the solution is very easy, just use the following code:

[See remaining text…]

IBDatabase1.DatabaseName := ChangeFileExt(Application.ExeName, '.fdb');
IBDatabase1.Params.Add('USER ''SYSDBA''');
IBDatabase1.Params.Add('PASSWORD ''masterkey''');
IBDatabase1.Params.Add('PAGE_SIZE 4096');
IBDatabase1.Params.Add('DEFAULT CHARACTER SET WIN1250');
IBDatabase1.CreateDatabase;

Jiří Činčura - http://blog.vyvojar.cz/jirka/

Are you ready?!

Are you ready for TPC-C based test results? Are you looking forward to know who is the winner?! Be prepared - 4th issue of IBDeveloper is coming soon!

Want to know who is who? Read IBDeveloper magazine!

JDBStudio - with Firebird and Fyracle support

New Java database administration tool - JDBStudio, that has plugins to support both Firebird and Fyracle functionality. More details, and free download.

Indiana Jones of the Balkans and the mystery of a hidden pyramid

“We’re talking about a huge construction effort here. The size of this pyramid will shock the archaeological world. It’s substantially higher than the Great Pyramid of Egypt,” said Mr Osmanagic, who has spent 15 years researching the pyramids of Central and South America. “We have discovered tunnels linking the pyramid with other hilltops. We have also found a huge entrance plateau, paved with thousands of handmade sandstone plates. Once the world accepts that we have this huge pyramid we will start trying to answer the questions: who? when? how? and why?”

Source

BDS2006 Update #2 - English

Now available for all registered users of BDS 2006. This is a patch that will install on either the initial released version or the C++Builder update version.

Read more

INFORMATION_SCHEMA for Firebird

Lorenzo Alberton writes:

"The SQL 2003 Standard introduced a new schema called INFORMATION_SCHEMA. PostgreSQL, SQL Server and now MySQL have it. ORACLE, DB2, Sybase, Ingres, Informix and other DBMS have something similar, usually called System Tables. The INFORMATION_SCHEMA is meant to be a set of views you can query using regular SELECT statements, for instance if you need to know something about the defined triggers, or the structure of a table to which you have access. Firebird doesn't have it, but you can retrieve pretty much everything you need from the system tables. These are metadata tables, their names start with "RDB$". Let's see how we can retrieve some useful informations from them."

Avalon3D vs Delphi

From Mabster's blog:

"

Something quite funny:

I forwarded a link to Channel9's latest demo of Avalon3D to a co-worker of mine who does a lot of OpenGL/Direct3D stuff in Delphi.

As part of my email, I commented on how impressive it was that they knocked up a 3D scene with an animated camera in only 30-or-so lines of code.

Within a few minutes, Pete sent me back an exe he'd written in Delphi using about 30 lines of code, that did exactly what the demo's application did.

I keep forgetting just how advanced the old dog is, even compared to Microsoft's "next big thing"! :)

"

More eyes on the code = better quality

From Dmitry Yemanov

Adriano dos Santos Fernandes has joined the Firebird code reviewing team (we can now call it a team, since there are now two people involved in this task - Claudio and Adriano). Adriano will be assisted by a grant from the Firebird Foundation.

Warning! Serious GBAK issue!

From Dmitry Yemanov

Running GBAK -C by a non-privileged user (i.e. neither SYSDBA nor database owner) causes an original database to be overwritten instead of the expected “database already exists” message.

This bug seems to be inherited from IB 6.0 and it exists in all FB versions. However, FB 2.0 is not affected due to different default restore rules.

"Oracle Accord Means Business-as-Usual"

from OpenEnterpriseTrends:

"Not taking any chances, however, MySQL is also developing its own transactional storage engine and will extend its transaction support by adding technologies developed by one of the creators of InterBase (which later became core technology for the Open Source Firebird project)."

SQL/e - Microsoft answer to FB Embedded?

From Steve Lasker’s Web Log - “I’m not familiar with the details of Firebird Embedded, so I can’t make a comparison. To capture the essence: SQL/e is a lightweight, in-proc relational database that offers a subset of the data types and TSQL syntax to provide queries over relational stored data with transactional support. The SQL/e data format can be password protected with encryption. SQL/e is based on the proven history of the Microsoft SQL Server Mobile Edition technology.”
Read more here.

To quote the FAQ on website:

Q: Does SQL/e support stored procedures, or views?
A: No. Because SQL/e is targeted at lightweight, in-proc scenarios these features aren’t available. However, these features are typically used to provide multi-user abstraction from the underlying database schema. Because SQL/e runs in-proc with your application these features would typically provide more overhead than value. Because SQL/e runs in-proc with your application, why limit yourself to T-SQL within a stored procedure? By creating a data access layer to your SQL/e database you can use the full power of the .NET Framework.

Q: How big is the SQL/e runtime?
A: For all 7 dlls, the entire runtime is 1.4mb. This is less than a SQL Express .mdf file.

Q: What is the data file size limitation of SQL/e?
A: Both SQL/e and SQL/x share the same 4gig size limitation.

‘Nuff said!

Delphi 2006 and WinForms in .NET 2.0

via Marco Cantu

"

Delphi 2006 can be used to write .NET 2.0 applications... by using the command line compiler.

In a recent blog post, Daniel Wischnewski shows how to compile a Delphi application for .NET 2.0. The trick is to use (from the command line compiler, not from the IDE) the --clrversion flag. He shows that you can compile a .NET 2.0 console application (using a specific 2.0 feature, the console background color) with this command:

dccil -CC
 -NSC:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727
 --clrversion:v2.0.50727
 --no-config
 SimpleSampleNET2.dpr

The only extra operation you have to do the first time is to copy to the project folder the source code file Borland.Delphi.System.pas and compile it with the following command:

dccil -CC
 -NSC:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727
 --clrversion:v2.0.50727
 --no-config
 -Q -M -y -Z -$D-
 Borland.Delphi.System.pas

   

Now, before you think I'm only quoting his work in my blog post, I've easily replicated Daniel's steps, but gone one step forward. I've used Delphi 2006 to create a new Delphi for .NET WinForms application, added to it code specific to version 2.0 of WInForms, and compiled it with a similar command line call.

In my extra code I've added the flat style to a button and used a new .NET 2.0 control to play a sound. This is my code:

procedure TWinForm3.ButtonClick(sender: TObject; e: System.EventArgs);
var
 sndPlayer: SoundPlayer;
begin
 Button1.FlatStyle := FlatStyle.Flat;

 sndPlayer := SoundPlayer.Create;
 sndPlayer.SoundLocation := 'C:\Program Files\Messenger\type.Wav';
 sndPlayer.LoadAsync;
 if sndPlayer.IsLoadCompleted then
   sndPlayer.Play;
end;

Now you cannot compile this code with the Delphi 2006 IDE, as some of the features are specific to .NET 2.0. But you can compile it with the following command line, similar to the previous ones but with references to the assemblies used:

dccil -CC
 -NSC:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727
 --clrversion:v2.0.50727
 --no-config
 projform20.dpr
 -luC:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.Data.dll
 -luC:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.Windows.Forms.dll

Of course, with no help from the designer, no IDE-based compilation, and no proper Code Insight (although it might be possible to turn these on), building WinForms 2.0 applications in Delphi 2006 is far from a great experience. However, if you want to experiment with some of the new components and properties, while you wait for Highlander (next version of Delphi), and don't care to install Visual Studio, this might be an interesting option. This also speaks in favor of the flexibility of the BDS IDE."

InstantObjects 2.0 Beta 3

via Marco Cantu

"A new beta of InstantObjects was released a few days ago... a very interesting O/R mapping solution for Delphi Win32.

InstantObjects is a powerful object persistence layer based on an object/relational mapping approach for Delphi Win32 VCL applications. In other words, your application code deals with objects in memory and the corresponding data is saved in a standard relational database. InstantObjects was based on the classic approach of Scott Ambler . It has recently been extended to work better in a SQL server world and supports a large set of databases. The architecture of InstantObjects is really very neat, and I find it nicer than many other more popular O/R mapping libraries.

At first, InstantObjects was a commercial product. When it was abandoned by the original developers and released as an open source project, a group of users set up a real and active open source project. Development has been steady and both bug fixing and new features are countless. There is an energetic community of developers and end users that is not only keeping the product alive but really improving it. Sadly this is not true for other Delphi open source projects, like those originating from TurboPower.

By combining this two features (a solid technical foundation, an active community) InstantObjects is a very interesting option as a framework for many different types of development projects. Learning the core features of InstantObjects is relatively easy, as you can find out looking at the classic (even if quite out-of date) presentation video. Its IDE integration helps a lot in defining new classes and their attributes. Its integration with Delphi's TDataSet architectrure lets you work on the user interface as with any other dataset.

I have no space for a full presentation, but I really suggest you evaluate it (the previous beta was also in the Delphi 2006 Companion CD) if you are interested in this kind of architecture. Certainly I'm biased towards it because part of the core group of developers are some Italian friends of mine (which is why the IO home page is hosted on my office server, like this blog) but I woudn't be pushing it if I wasn't sure of its technical merit."

Chess game in ajax - done by morfik team

via Mauricio Longo’s blog

Much had been said about the browser as a platform. It was an idea strongly promoted by, the now gone, Netscape at the start of the Web revolution, but we never got there. Did we? Yes, we did! We just did not notice it!
If you take your browsers to this chess game, you might start to understand what I mean.

< This game has a great interface and is played against you by your own computer. Your moves do not get sent off to a server which comes up with a response and sends a move order back to your browser. The analisys of the play and the decision of the move is entierly done in Javascript, in your own machine, by the browser.

JStar will be MySQL's own egine

Apparently MySQL will use JStar as an alternative to InnoDB. “What we didn’t tell people when we bought Netfrastructure is that we were getting more than just people. We were also getting software,” Mickos said. What else has he left out of his story, to reveal later??

Read more

MS vaguely outlines plans with SQLServer

Paul Flessner says that MS will release a light version of SQLServer called SQLServer Everywhere. Probably similar to Firebird embedded dynamic library, but with fewer features. He also says: "Today the cost of storage continues to be on an amazing trajectory; one could reasonably expect that the cost of a terabyte will be reduced from about $1000 today to $100 in 2007."

Read more

MySQL fills Oracle-consumed hole in database

MySQL fills Oracle-consumed hole in database by Martin LaMonica on ZDNet.

" The storage engine MySQL is working on will be available this year. The engine derives from MySQL's acquisition of Netfrastructure, which employed database luminary Jim Starkey and other engineers.

"What we didn't tell people when we bought Netfrastructure is that we were getting more than just people. We were also getting software," Mickos said.

At the company's customer conference later this month, MySQL executives will further detail its strategy for storage engines.

The company will disclose partners that are writing their own storage engines for MySQL and further detail its "plug-in" architecture for storage engines, said Zack Urlocker, MySQL vice president of marketing."

MySQL to unveil new transaction engine

MySQL to unveil new transaction engine by China Martens on LinuxWorld.

"MySQL is due to unveil a new transaction database engine at its upcoming user conference later this month, according to a company executive. The open-source database vendor will also be showcasing database engines from third parties, Zach Urlocker, vice president of marketing at MySQL, said Thursday.

The new transaction database was developed by Jim Starkey, a noted database software architect who joined MySQL when it acquired his Web application technology company in February, Urlocker said in an interview at the LinuxWorld conference in Boston. When Starkey joined MySQL from Netfrastructure, rumors immediately circulated that he had been hired to develop a new transactional engine for the company."

RedHat acquired JBoss

As predicted by many, JBoss has entered into an agreement to be acquired - by Red Hat, which anticipates accellerating the shift to SOA. According to the press release by Red Hat, they are acquiring JBoss for approximately $350 million in initial consideration, plus approximately $70 million subject to the achievement of certain future performance metrics.

Read more

SourceForge community loves the blue frog

"Of note was Firebird's second place in the database category. This relational database is quietly picking up both in community interest and market share, and could rival PostgreSql and MySql in time. "
Read here

I’m an Open Source project - buy me

via silentpenguin

With an - umm - “interesting” choice in wording, Pentaho announce the acquisition of the Kettle project. Kettle is an Open Source project centered around data integration. Matt Casters’ announcement on the same subject is more along the lines of the project “joining” Pentaho. Pentaho have hired Matt to be a data integrations architect there.

Win32 Classic and keepalive packets

From Dmitry Yemanov:

It has been discovered recently (thanks to Eugene Kilin) that Win32 builds of Classic Server did not set up some socket options properly, including SO_KEEPALIVE. So if you have troubles with “zombie” processes not terminating after the keepalive internal, this is the reason. The patch has been committed into HEAD today and it will be available in the v2.0 RC2 release.

Also, Windows builds (both SuperServer and Classic) are now in sync with the POSIX ones and also have the Nagle algorithm disabled by default. If you want to change this behaviour, set the config option TcpNoNagle to zero.

Linux kernel gets Oracle cluster support

Oracle's Cluster File System is to become part of Linux kernel 2.6.16 The Cluster File System is designed to let multiple Linux servers use the same file system and ease management of Linux servers. Time to start dusting of Firebird's cluster code.
Read more

Evans Data IDE Study Shows Borland Toolset Still a Powerhouse

"Evans Data today announced the results of Developers' Choice - IDEs, a study in which over 700 developers ranked the features and capabilities of nine top IDEs that they currently use. IBM's Rational Application Developer edged past Borland's JBuilder to receive the highest overall relative scores against top IDEs including Eclipse, Macromedia Studio MX, and Oracle Developer Suite. IDEs were ranked in 13 distinct categories including compiler/interpreter, debugger, editor, compiler performance, performance of resulting apps, ease of use, sample apps, and libraries/frameworks."

SAS Launches Enhanced Vertical BI Line

SAS Institute at its annual user conference introduced on March 27 three new and seven enhanced business intelligence applications designed to give customers tools for performing data analysis that predict trends and uncover potential problems. SAS is a prominent user of Firebird, as they explained at the last conference (zip with two pdf's hosted at IBPhoenix).

Gracco uses Firebird

Gracco - a new software developed by Zats & Loib - offers a complete and integrated solution for management business-oriented pertaining to legal profession for the Brazilian market. A free version of the tool can be download here. Gracco uses Firebird SuperServer as database.

Getting VCL/.NET ready for .NET 2.0 and 64bit CLR

by Allen Bauer

Changes, my friends, are afoot. While waiting for the Delphi/.NET compiler (dccil) to embrace all the latest goodies in the CLR world (partial types, generics, nullable types, anonymous methods, etc...) other engineers have been working on a lot of things that are independent of all the new compiler goodness. The biggest change that is going to happen to VCL/.NET is the change from using Integer for handles (ie. THandle = Integer;), it must now be changes to IntPtr. One common misconception (and one I admit to having fallen prey to as well) is that somehow IntPtr is some kind of “Pointer” type represented as an Integer. Well, call me foolish and gullible, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that “IntPtr” is not what I'd call a very good name. OK, OK... it basically sucks as a name. I can see why at first glance one would be led to the misconception that “IntPtr” is a “Pointer.” So what is this odd bit of identifier madness? In actual fact (and to the more intelligent and astute among you, this is all mindless drivel), it really means this “Integer whose physical size and precision matches the physical size of a Pointer on the currently running underlying platform for which the “Just-In-Time” compiler is actually generating code” (pay no attention to the nested quotes in that statement).

Read more here

DRoster Employee Scheduler

Kappix Releases DRoster Employee Scheduler 2.2.1 - Uses "a standard Software industry database (Firebird)".

MediaWiki roadmap - Firebird support in version 2.0

Major plans for 2.0 - Firebird support will be added

MySQL AB Acquires Firebird Foundation and Flamerobin

Milan Babuskov, one of original creators of fbManager which became Flamerobin, just made it publicly known that he now works for MySQL AB.

My project, Flamerobin and Firebird Foundation , have been acquired by MySQL, AB. As part of the agreement, I will be working full time for MySQL. I expect to lurk on the flamerobin-devel list from time to time and may contribute the occasional wolf-o-gram, but I will not be taking an active part in Flamerobin development. Although Mariuz will work for MySQL, part time, translating from wolf to English, He will continue to be active in the Firebird/Flamerobin projects.

Ann Harrison gave the idea to buy all the firebird developers with this post
on firebird-support

Update 4/4/2006: Till next year, happy April Fools.

MyPostBirdSQL 2.0 RC1 released

Today first RC1 release is announced that many oss developers had been awaiting

MyFireGreSql 2.0 is based on code from mysql 6.0 ,firebird 3.0,postgresql 9.0
We needed a big shake up in open source database world and working on the common code base have it’s
advantages:Firebird and Postgresql borrowed from mysql’s speed , mysql used MVCC for it’s transactional engine (is based on firebird) .

[See remaining text…]

SQL2003 is implemented in all three engines now that is published as standard .So why working on a three SQL200X implementations when we could work only on one? , The project’s model is linux kernel where vendors are using only one source code for their distributions (patched properly) but there is only one organization for working on the kernel osdl.

New in Firebird 2.0

Firebird 2 contains a large number of new features, including derived tables, support for Execute Block, increased table sizes, new improved index code (the 252-byte index length limit is no longer applicable), expression indices, numerous optimiser improvements, enhanced security features, support for on-line incremental backups, new international language support, along with numerous other improvements and bug fixes.

Note Firebird 2 includes ODS changes. So, backup anything you want to keep before uninstalling a previous Firebird version or a previous alpha or beta version.

Firebird 2.00 Release Candidate 1

The Firebird Project is pleased to announce the release of the first release candidate of Firebird 2.0, for final testing. Download kits are available for Windows and Linux, including x64 Linux. However, due to hardware failure on the Windows build system, there will be initial delays in accessing the Win32 kits. Patience please!

Firebird 2.0 RC1 is out. What's next?

Dmitry Yemanov reported:

RC1 has just been released. There will definitely be RC2 as well, as we have to complete the documentation and solve some minor installation issues. Also, there were a few regressions fixed in the meantime. But should one expect RC3 and so on? This depends on you only. The better you test the server and provide us with the feedback, the sooner we release the final version. The release branch will be created the next week. At the same time, we should publish the updated roadmap to reflect the actual state of development. I also expect some private branches to be merged with HEAD as soon as it's unlocked to allow the new code.

There are bugs and BUGS

Dmitry Yemanov writes:

Consider it a bughunting success story :-) Some time ago we've got a bugreport about bugcheck #205 (index bucket overfilled) appearing during the database restore on a v2.0 server. The database was big and it was hard for the customer to create a test case. Fortunately, a special build with improved tracking facilities helped and the bug has been found and fixed. So far so good. But a few weeks later, this bug reappeared on the same database and under the same conditions. The only difference was a database size which has grown. After unsuccessful attempts to find the bug, the reduced copy of the customer database (with just a single table that causes the problem) has been received. It reproduced the bug successfully, with just one minor issue... it was a 3.5GB backup file :-) The restore process takes 6 hours in the debugger. It required a few runs to figure out the actual problem (don't ask me how many days it has taken :-), but it has been finally fixed. Sigh. Some bugs are buggier than others :-) By the way, this should be exactly the bug that prevented Dalton Calford from restoring his database on v2.0 (he reported the issue in fb-devel).

Data Application Block for Firebird SQL (The Code Project)

Posted by Dan on dotnetfirebird.org

The Firebird SQL data application block is intended to speed up development, and it should be used in conjunction with data layer classes in much the same way as Microsoft’s data block. The sample included with this article uses the embedded Firebird SQL database (included in sample) to demonstrate the use of the application block without having to bother setting up a database.

Firebird SQL data application block was inspired by the Microsoft Application blocks. The block provides overloaded methods to query a Firebird database which return a dataset, data table, or integer in the case of scalar database calls. An additional overload method takes an existing dataset as a parameter and fills the results of a stored procedure send as parameter as well.

Data Application Block for Firebird SQL - The Code Project - C# Database

Why Firebird?

From http://www.mamaliz.org/blogs/entropy/archives/2005/09/why_firebird.html

"I am trying to move from using mckoi as my default test database to firebird. I really didn't want to do this, but I also cannot afford to buy an odbc driver for mckoi. Also, I am trying to move all my gobs stuff into 3 different languages, java (it is there already), C#, and ruby. mckoi only works for one of them, firebird works for all of them. I can also use firebird with NEO, Spring for Net, and NHibernate. Firebird wins."

Idea for one application build around firebird

Seems to be the blog of the day :

More & more I want to write the issue/requirements tracker that has been in my head for so long. I would write it in either java, php or Ruby on Rails. I would put an embedded firebird database behind it. Now, I have to get people to believe that they should let me do this at work. I am too damn old and tired to do it at home in my oh so copious spare time.

php class to use with firebird database

Posted by mariuz
Source code example is located on DevFactory.com.mx

Then they laugh at you...

Not only does open source Firebird-Fyracle have a catchy name and almost match Oracle on the 6 well known “gold standard key database evaluation mapping criteria”, but it is “just as idiosyncratic”, AND you can run “Compiere v2.5.3c” ( almost )!

Here is the response from shocked oracle users after they found Firebird/Fyracle (Denial Mode)

fyracle - oracle replacement blog of the day

Seen at Firebird Weekly News

"I won't be suggesting this as a replacement for my Oracle production databases anytime soon, but it might be worth looking at for some applications."

Visual Studio Information for Borland Delphi Developers

MSDN has an interesting page with information for Delphi users. Some interesting... some totally misleading.

Firebird COBOL users united

Stephen Boyd asked:

“Before you all go eeeewwww yuck who still uses COBOL, the answer is
lots of us. My immediate goal is to try to find out if there are many
Interbase / Firebird users who still use COBOL like we do.
[ED: you can read the full thread on Firebird-General mailing list]

Using AQTime as a Delphi Debugging Tool

From Mark Edington's Delphi Blog

"Here’s the dilemma: You’ve got some code in front of you that you know basically nothing about and it doesn’t work. Well, actually, there’s just one little part of it that doesn’t work, but the trouble is you have absolutely no idea where or what that little part is. Your job is to fix it. Where do you start?"

Firebird ADO .NET Data Provider

The Firebird ADO .NET Data Provider 1.7.1 for .NET 1.1 and Mono:1.1 is available for download.

Web Deploy is back! (Delphi 2005 and 2006)

The Web Deploy feature is now back for Delphi 2005 and BDS 2006. You use this when you need to deploy your ActiveX projects.

SAS software and Firebird Vulcan

By Tom Cole, Platform R&D, SAS Institute Inc. (From the Firebird Conference Prague 2005).
First seen on IBPhoenix

"This paper describes the architecture and requirements for implementing a relational, transaction-based storage mechanism in SAS software, a commercial business intelligence product that uses the Vulcan code base in an embedded mode."

Mastering Borland Delphi 2006 EBook

Marco Cantu have finished an ebook meant to update Mastering Borland Delphi 2005 to Delphi 2006.
The ebook, which can be found at www.marcocantu.com/md2005/UpdateDelphi2006.html now covers the most relevant new areas of the product, from the IDE to the language, from the RTL to the VCL, and from the database area to the Internet development tools.

Firebird Developers Journal

Dmitry Yemanov writes: "Well, after many months of thinking about this idea, we are finally starting this journal. It's intended to provide you with all the necessary news about the Firebird development process. So if you cannot (or just don't want to) follow the development mailing lists closely, this is your chance to still be informed about the progress."
Read more

Peace Signs in Sarajevo

There is a great news article on Sarajevo & BiH in the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/24/AR2006032400669.html

"After the War, the Capital Rises From the Ruins

The word most often heard from visitors about Sarajevo is "hospitable." After the concert, I walked the city streets, chatting with shop owners selling copper coffee sets and wooden crafts in Old Town, which Ottoman Turks founded in the 15th century. I wondered how a population so recently torn apart by hate could be so warm and inviting. Everywhere I stopped, I was beseeched to stay and share strong Bosnian (Turkish) coffee or something stronger. Who was I to refuse?
"

The return of the VAX cluster

iSCSI is making network shared storage an increasingly popular choice in the midmarket. A $15K device can offer 2.5TB shared storage to 6 servers. Now that looks remarkably like the architecture of the VAX clusters of old. Perhaps it is time to resurrect the Firebird VAX clustering code.

Read more here

New acronyms FLAPS , FWAP, FWIP

FLAPS is FLAP with ssl (that is s for)

FWAP is an acronym for the combination Microsoft Windows, Apache, Firebird and one or more of Perl, PHP and Python. It is modelled after the more well-known FLAP, referring to the all-open source/free software approach which uses Linux instead of Windows.
FWIP is the WIMP equivalent (alias) with firebird used instead of mysql

Firebird 2.0 tagged for RC1!

Dmitry Yemanov reported:

The CVS tree has been tagged for RC1 last week, the release notes are also ready. The build makers are now in the process of compiling the kits and testing them. So we expect RC1 to be released sometime this week.

Firebird source code reviews

Claudio Valderrama wrote:

"Recently, Coverity presented their first results in their scanning technology that hunts for defects in source code. One of the addressed projects was Firebird. After Roman Rokytskyy reviewed the results, he concluded the failures are in two areas ..."

[ Firebird/Fyracle ] Example of stored procedure in C #

Several months ago, Carlos Guzmán Alvarez posted sample of stored procedure written in C #.
Article is on Spanish but here is babelfish translation :

"The procedure stored this carried to C # from one of the stored procedures of the data base of example that comes with Firebird (employee.fdb), asi we have the possibility of verifying that the results are the correct ones of a very simple form:)

The procedure stored original in PSQL:

CREATE PROCEDURE to ship_order (po_num CHAR(8))
AS
Ord_stat DECLARES VARIABLE CHAR(7);
Hold_stat DECLARES VARIABLE CHAR(1);
Cust_no INTEGER DECLARES VARIABLE;
Any_po DECLARES VARIABLE CHAR(8);
BEGIN
SELECT s.order_status, c.on_hold, c.cust_no
FROM salts s, to customer c
WHERE to po_number =:po_num
AND s.cust_no = c.cust_no
INTO:ord_stat,:hold_stat,:cust_no;

/ * This purchase to order you have been already shipped.
*/
IF (ord_stat = ' shipped') THEN
BEGIN
 EXCEPTION order_already_shipped;
 SUSPEND;
END

/ * Customer is on hold. */
ELSE IF (hold_stat = ' * ') THEN
BEGIN
 EXCEPTION customer_on_hold;
 SUSPEND;
END

/ *
 * If there is an unpaid balance on orders shipped
to over 2 months ago,
 * put the to customer on hold.
 */
FOR SELECT to po_number
 FROM salts
 WHERE cust_no =:cust_no
 AND order_status = ' shipped'
 AND paid = ' n'
 AND ship_date < CAST('NOW' AS TIMESTAMP) - 60
 INTO:any_po
DO
BEGIN
 EXCEPTION customer_check;

 UPDATE to customer
 SETH on_hold = ' * '
 WHERE cust_no =:cust_no;

 SUSPEND;
END

/ *
 * Ship the to order.
 */
UPDATE salts
SETH order_status = ' shipped', ship_date = ' NOW'
WHERE to po_number =:po_num;

SUSPEND;
END!

The code carried to C # would be left asi:

public FbResultSet ShipOrder(string to
purchaseOrderNumber)
{
   string orderStatus = null;
   string holdStatus = null;
   int to customerNumber = 0;

   to purchaseOrderNumber = purchaseOrderNumber.Trim();

   FbConnection connection = new
FbConnection(this.GetConnectionString());
   connection.Open();

   string SQL = "SELECT s.order_status, c.on_hold, c.cust_no" +
                "FROM salts s, to customer c" +
               "WHERE to po_number = to @PurchaseOrderNumber AND
s.cust_no = c.cust_no";

   using (FbCommand select = new FbCommand(sql, connection))
   {
       to select.Parameters.Add("@PurchaseOrderNumber",
FbDbType.Char).Value = to purchaseOrderNumber;

       FbDataReader to reader = select.ExecuteReader();

       if (reader.Read())
       {
           orderStatus = reader.GetString(0);
           holdStatus = reader.GetString(1);
           to customerNumber = reader.GetInt32(2);
       }

       reader.Close();
       reader.Dispose();
       to reader = null;
   }

   / * This purchase to order you have been already
shipped. */
   if (orderStatus == "shipped")
   {
       throw new Exception("Order status is \"shipped.\"");
   }
   else if (holdStatus == "*")// Customer is on hold.
   {
       throw new Exception("This to customer is on hold.");
   }

   / *
    * If there is an unpaid balance on orders shipped
to over 2 months ago,
    * put the to customer on hold.
    */
   SQL = "SELECT to po_number" +
       "FROM salts" +
       "WHERE cust_no = to @CustomerNumber" +
       "AND order_status = ' shipped'" +
       "AND paid = ' n'" +
       "AND ship_date < CAST('NOW' AS TIMESTAMP) - 60 ";
  
   using (FbCommand select = new FbCommand(sql,
connection))
   {
       to select.Parameters.Add("@CustomerNumber",
FbDbType.Integer).Value = to customerNumber;

       using (FbDataReader to reader = select.ExecuteReader())
       {
           while (reader.Read())
           {
               SQL = "UPDATE to customer SETH on_hold = ' * ' WHERE
cust_no = to @CustomerNumber;";

               FbCommand update = new FbCommand(sql, connection);
               to update.Parameters.Add("@CustomerNumber",
FbDbType.Integer).Value = to customerNumber;

               int rowsAffected = update.ExecuteNonQuery();

               update.Dispose();
               update = null;

               throw new Exception("Overdue balance -- dog not ship.");
           }
       }
   }

   / *
    * Ship the to order.
    */
   SQL = "UPDATE salts SETH order_status = ' shipped',
ship_date = ' NOW' WHERE to po_number = to @PurchaseOrderNumber";

   using (FbCommand update = new FbCommand(sql, connection))
   {
       to update.Parameters.Add("@PurchaseOrderNumber",
FbDbType.Char).Value = to purchaseOrderNumber;

       int rowsAffected = update.ExecuteNonQuery();

       update.Dispose();
   }

   //Return an empty resultset
   return new FbResultSet();
}

In order to define the almancenado procedure, the name of engine is not definitive and the format to either indicate the class and the method that are going away to execute:

CREATE PROCEDURE to ship_order
(
po_num CHAR(8)
)
LANGUAGE DOTNET
External NAME '
FirebirdSql.ExternalEngine.Samples.Employee,
FirebirdSql.ExternalEngine.Samples::ShipOrder'!

By I complete would be possible to execute using it:

EXECUTE PROCEDURE SHIP_ORDER('V9320630 ')

It will try to publish another example in which resultset is given back."

FlameRobin whitepaper

Milan writes:

"it was recently concluded that the original authors have the copyright
on papers that were published at the Firebird Conference, so I decided
to make my paper available to the public.

Some small portion of the text is outdated (based on version 0.4.0),
but you can read about history and basic ideas around the project:

http://www.flamerobin.org/flamerobin_paper.pdf
"

"DevCo" - Ping...

by Allen Bauer

"It's Friday. It's been a full week. The BDS2006 update is nearing completion. The team is adopting some more agile processes and continuing on Highlander (the codename for the next BDS release) as we peel folks away from the update. We had some “proof-of-concept“ demos in a meeting this morning that seems to have sparked some real interest among the team. The small email storm that followed was a good sign...

We had a new compiler engineer start this week! Yet, there's still some more open req's for the Delphi/C++Builder. We're looking to fill some of those positions now. This is a good opportunity for someone (or more) to get on board before the spin out."

Read more

Leveraging breakpoint properties in the Delphi IDE

Steve Trefethen writes:

"Have you ever tried debugging GUI code where focus changes cause code to execute that you didn't want executed? This is a fairly standard GUI debugging problem and one that Mark Edington (of Delphi R&D) recently discussed relating to debugging drag/drop code in the VCL. Having written a custom menuing system (in ActionBands) I've had my fair share of this type of debugging as well. I was helping Mark debug the above drag/drop problem and it occurred to me that it might be useful to mention a few breakpoint debugger features in our IDE that are likely overlooked by a lot of people."

Read more

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

Interesting thoughts. Should be taught at schools. :)

Interbase and Delphi to move to Europe?

Borland CEO promises 'caring' IDE overlord by Gavin Clarke on The Register. The Reg suggests that Delphi and Interbase may be acquired by a European investor.

MSSql difficult to configure? Switch to Firebird!

However I don’t like MSSql server, first of all it is hard to configure, finding solutions to problems is not an easy task, it has lots of dependencies scattered around the hard disk. Hail mysql and firebird.

Let there be Fire - morfik site revamped

Today I was glad to see the new website of Morfik Technology was unveiled. Along with a totally redesigned web site, comes the public release of a test version of the their WebOS AppsBuilder tool. These transformations probably reflect a move by Morfik, to bring the development of the WebOS AppsBuilder into the light, after being kept in the shadows for quite some time.

Ed:if you don't know what is the link between firebird and morfik here is an e-mail interview with the Morfik team

TurboCASH development implementing Firebird database

From the blog of the day department

This blogger's comment:

I think this is really good news, since the Delphi source code poses a lot of limitations, Delphi being a commercial compiler/IDE. The way I understand it, you basically have to purchase Delphi if you want to customize and recompile the TurboCASH source. The same with BDE-Paradox. I'd really like to see TurboCASH take-off in this direction.

Fyracle presentation

Oracle-mode Firebird (Fyracle) was presented at Developer's GigaCon in Warsaw. Paul Ruizendaal's paper is available for general viewing.

Borland CEO promises 'caring' IDE overlord

Nielsen told the annual EclipseCon show in Santa Clara: "Its my commitment to find an investor who will invest in the business and drive it forward. I'm not looking for someone who is a Lex Luthor or the Evil Empire who will destroy the business. That's going to reflect badly on Borland."


Read more

A few results from a Performance Test of Firebird 2

Holger Klemt from IBExpert have some interesting story.

In short, Firebird 2.0 beta 2 is twice as fast as FB 1.53 and almost 4 times faster than Interbase 7.51!

Read complete story:

"In the latest Edition of IBExpert, we added some new modules, on is
a database script with a simple sales database, that creates its test
data from a stored procedure.

now i had some time to test it against fb153, fb2b2 (and ib751)

What does it do: first it creates a almost empty database with just
some entries in helptables. after the database is created, you have to
start one procedure and wait for the time it takes.

the procedures creates a customer table from the strings in the
helptables, it creates products from other strings, it creates
order header and order lines. based on that some trigger also
write a sales history etc.

all in all you can create a testdatabase as large as you need, because
the procedure called initall gives you the possibilty to fill a
parameter with an integervalue, that defines the size of the final
database. when you use the value 10000, then 10000 customers are
created, 10000 articles and a lot of orders etc. The Testdatabase
is before starting the procedure created with 16k pagesize and the
cache buffers were changed to 50000.

for the test i used a value of 100000 so the final database that is
created has a size of about 200MB.

While executing this procedure with the parameter 100000, it starts
about 5,200,000 Selects, 800,000 Updates and 1,700,000 Inserts, all
in all about 7,700,000 Operations.

now the time when starting this on a dual core AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+
with 2 GB RAM.

using fb153: 486 Seconds (not bad, about 16,000 Operations per second)

uninstalled fb153, installed fb2 beta 2: 244 Seconds!!!!!!!!

Wow, not that i would say it was slow on fb153, but the results on
fb2b2 are impressive. About 31500 Operations per second.

Congratulations to the developer Team. you made a brilliant job.

Starting with the next IBExpert Version, the Demodatabase will be
available also in the trial version and in the personal edition.

if you would like to test it now on your machine, just Install
IBExpertLive (download details on www.ibexpert.com). I have added
the demodatabase in my session "Holger Klemt - Server Performance -
How to make your application run faster (FBC2005)", so you can connect
to view this session and press on the left side on "download session
files" to get the installer.

Holger
www.ibexpert.com


p.s.: did i mention the result from ib751? 838 Seconds"

Tax System of Open Code

I their latest issue, INFO magazine published an article about TAMP Project (where I work), and this is one of Firebird success stories...

I have scanned those 3 pages, and our translator have translated article to English ;-)

Here it is (Bosnian version):

Original page 1
Original page 2
Original page 3

And now English translation

The Big Secret of the OpenSource Community

I have written article about Firebird for Bosnian IT magazine INFO several months ago. I have scanned those 3 pages, and also translated article to English ;-)

Here it is:

Original page 1
Original page 2
Original page 3

And now English translation

I hope that you will like it!
Enjoy!

I am back!

I was too busy to write here in last several (or even more than several) months.
I'll try to write as much as possible from now on!