Firebird not experimental

[Wol]

On 26/08/2024 20:06, Juan C. Sanz wrote:
> TLTR. Propose Take Firebird out of experimental mode and explain 
> author’s opinion about current situation of Firebird implementation, and 
> the benefits of put it in service.
> 
> 
>       Background
> 
> Base is undoubtedly the ugly duckling of LibreOffice.
> 
> The reasons why, in my opinion Base is not more used are
> 
>   *
> 
>     The only type of embedded databases that the normal user sees when
>     he wants to create a database is HSQLDB. Since the days of
>     OpenOffice, these databases have a reputation for being slow, and,
>     more importantly, for corrupting data, rendering the database unusable.
> 
Imho the reason is actually much more fundamental. If you haven't been 
to Uni and done a CS degree, you haven't (a) been indoctrinated into the 
Relational religion, and (b) you don't understand all this normal form 
stuff.

(Note that most CS grads seem to know only the relational model. They 
don't know about any other databases. It's like thinking studying the 
Tudors makes you an expert on British History ...)
>   *
> 
>     Databases are less and less used in small businesses and households,
>     having been replaced by “databases” made in spreadsheets.
> 
I work for a BIG business (FTSE 100 (or was, I think we fell out a 
couple of quarters ago)), and we have a massive database implemented as 
loads of Excel sheets. The problem is it "just growed", because we are 
Business Analysts, not Computer Analysts (well, I consider myself a 
Database Analyst, but that's from a previous life, not my current role).
>   *
> 
>     Databases appear to be very difficult to understand for a normal user.
> 
Imho, it's RELATIONAL databases that normal users can't understand ...
>   *
> 
>     User interface is somewhat outdated
> 
>   *
> 
>     Base does not provide some facilities that other more popular DBMSs do.
> 
Make that *R*DBMSs.
> 
>       Firebird implementation. Back to experimental mode
> 
I'm not going to go on much more, I may be a fanatic but I don't want to 
put everybody off :-) But I'm very much a fan of NOSQL databases, in 
particular MultiValue. (NoSQL comes in three versions according to 
Wikipedia - v1 was a database, v2 is "Not only SQL" ie key-value plus 
schema such as MultiValue, and then v3 is pure key-value like Amazon's 
DynamoDB and there's a Google version, all without schema and aimed at web.)

If you want to play with a MultiValue database, play with ScarletDME 
(https://github.com/WolWise1/ScarletDME/tree/dev/). It was originally 
written as an embedded database, so it could be embedded into 
LibreOffice. And then you could also install the whole shebang, and use 
the database tools as well. (Note that it's currently linux only, 
unfortunately.)

At work I'm planning to replace all these Excel spreadsheets with an 
instance of OpenQM (the commercial version of ScarletDME). And given 
that most historic implementations of MultiValue databases were built by 
*users*, not CS guys, surely they have to be easy for your typical user, 
no? I'm hoping (and expecting!) my fellow analysts to adopt it very 
rapidly once they realise the power and ease of use of the MultiValue model.

Feel free to email me privately (that's anyone!), who wants to discuss 
it. I'm happy to discuss things on-list, but I don't want my enthusiasm 
to alienate people!

If I start working on OpenQM at work, hopefully that will also give me 
the drive to work on ScarletDME privately ...

Cheers,
Wol