Firebird V1.5.x is the first release of the Firebird 2 codebase and represents a significant milestone for the developers and the whole Firebird project, but it is not an end in itself. With these release, major development continues toward the next point release on the journey to Firebird V2.0.
Firebird 1.5.2 is Released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Firefox 1.5.2?? FIREFOoou… what? Firebird? Oh.
🙂
The web page says the program has been under different names, when was it changed to Firebird? Also, is this why Firefox changed its name?
“Under different names” refers to the fact that the database switched corporate owners several times from the early 1980s to the late 1990s, and many of the switches were accompanied by a name change.
In 2000, Borland released Interbase 6.0 under an open source license, but then decided to re-proprietize Interbase once the Open Source + Internet mania wore off. Some former Interbase developers and others who wanted vitality in the open source branch decided to continue the project under the name “Firebird”, to symbolize the phoenix-like rise of the project from the ashes of Borland’s temporary open-sourcing of Interbase.
It was much later that the Mozilla folks decided to usurp the name Firebird for their browser; they were eventually dissuaded, and changed the browser’s name to Firefox.
I have been using Firebird since 2002 in my production projects. It’s fast, stable, very easy to install and maintain and have a lot of features to make the development fast.
Combined with Delphi, in my opinion is the most productive solution for GUI + DB + Windows apps.
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I’ve been using it too since year 2002, I simple can’t believe something that good can be free, nested selects, stored procedures, triggers, generators and more, this baby has it all.
I can use it with Delphi and Visual C#, and keeps getting better, Im very happy with it.
It’s very fast, small, clearly licensed, etc. Who can hate such a project? Only someone that doesn’t know it and doesn’t want to know it. It’s in the same league of PostreSQL and MySQL for many projects, though some might prefer the virtues of Firebird over those of the competing databases.
It’s the best RDMS I had ever used.
Free (really free, you don’t have to pay anything to nobody), stable, fast, open sourced and run in Linux and Windows.
Too bad so few people know abou it…
I agree that Firebird is an excellent DB. I often wonder why some projects do not get the credit they deserve. We had to pick a DB recently for an academic project and I would have loved to have chosen firebird but instead we had to use postgresql for acceptance reasons. The sad fact is that if your project doesn’t use acceptable software (according to the geek community out there) then the software most be inferior.
Another good example is Delphi (by Borland), which I would argue to be the best development environment for Windows Apps, the GUI class library is much more mature than for example Windows Forms (and I imagine compared to most other kits out there, though I’ve not tried them all). But for one reason or another Delphi is either unknown or not an acceptable solution for most geeks. I think on the whole, programmers are a highly conservative lot, unwilling to stray far from the flock.
yep firebird…small footprint, no need to tweak much of it (in contrast to mysql and oracle, for example). still some parts of it are antiquated and will be changed in version 2.0 (e.g. table row size limits)
I will agree with you that programmers are higly conservative, but I can’t agree about delphi vcl. It is a nice gui library but I started working with gtk in python and it is a lot better.
Try to not be conservative yourself and try to learn python, after 3 to 4 hours you will never want to go back (I programmed in delphi for 4 or 5 years before learning python).
I agree completely on both accounts.
Firebird is an excellent database, and Delphi is a great development tool that was pretty much ignored in North America except for the devoted few, yet Delphi thrived in Europe.
I thought this as well, until I tried PostgresQL 7.4.5 and now 8.0.
Firebird is missing alot of things that Postgres has such as Temp Tables, and built in functions, plus lots of other things. Schema (namespace) support in Postgres is also extremly handy and it has DBlink where I can do cross database/cross server queries.
I still very much like Firebird, and look forward to the day they merge in the Vulcan code base.
I agree. It is very standards compliant and it is easy to expand with stored procedures or UDFs. In short a very good database.
However, with the risk of starting a flame war, I would say that it is a bit unfair to compare it to MySQL. It targets a quite different audience, at least with their current version. MySQL. Its most common use is for building advanced web sites. Firebierd is what you run your business on.
Just to mention a few benefits Firebird have over MySQL 4.1.x:
Stored procedures, views, triggers. They all make a lot of difference if to make sure that business rules are followed.
Comparing Firebird to MySQL 5.1 that we probably will see in a production ready state in a couple of years or so
would be more appropriate. If you should compare Firebird to any current MySQL AB product you should compare it to MaxDb (formerly known as SAPdb)
I agree that Firebird is an excellent DB. I often wonder why some projects do not get the credit they deserve.
Actually, I think Firebird do get the credit it deserves. It is a very good database but the documentation sucks major. It mostly rely on old interbase 6 documetation. That documentation works fine, but it is too hard to find for a new user. I guess they have missed many new users that haven’t realized that they should have followed that interbase link when it came up on a google search.
This is something Postgresql and MySQL does much better. Even though I’m a little annoyed that the MySQL manuals are full of stuff that is only available in alfa or future versions of their product.
On the positive side, the Firebird support list is extremly good, one of the best I ever seen. Kudos to Helen Borrie and others in the Firebird team than doesn’t seem to do anything else than answering questions.
I think on the whole, programmers are a highly conservative lot, unwilling to stray far from the flock.
Otherwise, Smalltalk would hold the place of Java.
Firebird has been a great resource for my consulting business, I use and endorse it on every occasion.
I can wait patiently for v2.0 as it is already a fast, feature-rich database!
Between Firebird and PosGreSql which one requires less or no DBA attention?
I would say Firebird. It requires less attention during the installation and maintenance.
I would say they both are pretty simple to administer (as well as MySQL). PostgreSQL users used to have to vacuum their DBs manually but now there is pg_autovacuum. The default settings for PostgreSQL is not tuned for large scale/busy DBs though, so you need to at least read about several configuration variables and know how to tune them.
Even if MySQL 5.1 supports views, triggers, and procedural language, there is one thing missing: CHECK constraints 🙂 I don’t see check constraints being prioritized in the 5.x series…
Ah, the MySQL motto: “data integrity is second. speed speed speed” 🙂
Postgres it the hands down winner here.
Why?
For one postgres has a autovacuum daemon that keeps things nice and tight all day long, it also has a nice vacuum script that can be run once a day to keep the databases compacted.
You have to do a backup and restore every once and while with FB to keep the DB size down.
Postgres also has a nice server autocommit feature, and you never run into the dreaded stuck OAT (oldest active transaction)
Once Postgres is setup you never have to monkey with it, and I have never had a corrupt DB, while I have with FB.
Firebird is nice, but Postgres is much better.
Do yourself a favor and switch to Postgres, version 8 also has a rock solid native win32 version.
> Try to not be conservative yourself and try to learn python,
> after 3 to 4 hours you will never want to go back (I
> programmed in delphi for 4 or 5 years before learning python
Hmmmm. This sounds like an unrealistic statement. Hobby programming, maybe, but corperate?? No way. People I code for would laugh themselves off of their seats.
GTK is quite a flat API isn’t it? Not too suitable for Windows dev – and after all that is what Delphi is aimed at.
Pascal – Object Pascal is a far more rounded language. It compiles to native code. Where performance is essential (mostly corperate apps.) You’ll never convince me 😉
Postgres it the hands down winner here.
Why?
For one postgres has a autovacuum daemon that keeps things nice and tight all day long, it also has a nice vacuum script that can be run once a day to keep the databases compacted.
You have to do a backup and restore every once and while with FB to keep the DB size down.
Postgres also has a nice server autocommit feature, and you never run into the dreaded stuck OAT (oldest active transaction)
I wont put on doubt the quality or performance of postgree sql because I haven’t tried, Im in love of Firebird because I’ve been using it for years and can do what I need and more, and when you are happy with a product you don’t look for another, Im happy with Firebird in every aspect, and because I have FIBPLUS (with a tested quality by many enterprices) components installed in Delphi that allows me to connect directly w/o the need ODBC or anything else and the performance is better, I don’t know about POSTGREE, but again, I don’t really care about it, because with Firebird I have all I need.
I know Firebird is a great free product, but don’t dismiss PostgreSQL just because you [think you] have all your needs fulfilled with FB. You don’t know what you’re missing 🙂
Postgres currently has much less limitations than FB. Very vey long index lengths? (4000 chars, 20000 chars, no problem). Index on BLOB/BYTEA? Yes you can. Use Perl, Ruby, Python, Tcl, etc for procedural languages? Sure! (Believe me, you’ll love being able to write PL in your favorite language). Several times bigger community. Significantly faster development pace. Free as well as commercial solutions for replication and full text indexing. .NET provider, ODBC, Win32 port, all present now. Who knows now that win32 port is here, people will start creating a direct-connect Delphi component.
The only major thing Postgres lacks compared to FB right now, for me, is 2-phase commit. That is being worked on.
I want to bundle the database with our buisness application. I want database to run continuously without customer reporting any data corruption or data missing problems.
How does their internationational language support compares?
Which of the two has better Secuirty model?
I might connect to the database using JDBC, perl:DBI, Python/wxPython, ADO, ADO.Net, php:ADOdb…most likely both databases supports these languages.
Follow the news at http://www.ibphoenix.com
I’m sure some of you will be surprised by the on going good news that appear there.
There is already a native delphi component set for Postgres:
http://www.zeoslib.net and it works great, been using it in production for 8 months.
and a commercial one at: http://www.microlap.com
Postgres is much better than Firebird.
Try and do a cross database/cross server query in Firebird,
I can do it in postgresql.
Postgres also has schema support (namespaces)for all objects its like having a database in a database, it’s super handing for organizing you tables,functions etc.
I am downloading it right now.
Yeah, right. 🙂
Commercial
http://www.microolap.com/products/connectivity/postgresdac/
Open Source
http://www.zeoslib.net
there are also DBexpress drivers available.
Open Source
http://www.zeoslib.net
Some one has a mirror for this one? is always full.