Firebird SQL 1.5 is officially released. Right now, only Linux and Windows versions are available, but other platforms should follow shortly. Scroll down here to download the files.
Firebird SQL 1.5 final released
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Eugenia Loli
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Yea but I think the Mozilla team were very willing to change their name.
Atleast it didnt get ugly *cough mikerosoft/lindows/mandrake/etc *cough
Well, since Firebird SQL had been around for a few years before Mozilla decided to use the name too, I don’t see why the Mozilla folks should cry about it. Maybe I should make a browser called Postgre and then act surprised when people bring up that fact that the name is already being used elsewhere.
… that Firebird doesn’t get the press or attention that it deserves. Of the major OSS database software around, Firebird is probably the most powerful and feature-full. MySQL is a mere toy compared to it.
what makes it so much better than MySQL. is there some sort of online comparison we can gawk at? I don’t know much about it.
MySQL isn’t a database! SAP DB rebranded to MySQL MaxDB, does mysql ever write a line of code? Now they got SAPDB, which is very old and used in the enterprise marketed as MySQL MaxDB (the enterprise open source database) according to their site. Before that, mysql was ready for the enterprise according to thme. It’s a just a bunch of dbs put together in a shitty way that makes data corruption a very common thing! A bunch of php idiots made it popular. Thus, mysql is a package of databases. I’d rather go for postgresql, or Firebird. They now market MaxDB by MySQL as the enterprise open source database. Man mysql is so pathetic. Due to some php zealots/idiots mysql became popular, but it doesn’t mean that the most popular thing is the best. Most people are idiots, is that a good thing? Most people use internet explorer, is IE good?
Firebird has been arround since 1980 under different names. The most recent was Interbase. Borland has released Interbase under open source in 2000 because they had marketing problems and revenue was shitty. After a few months the closed the source again (Sounds like Sun and Open Office). It is a very good database.
FireBird is ACID-compliant, and implements one of the most complete subsets (if not the most complete one )of SQL92.
It is powerful, scales well, it’s quite fast, and performs various orders of magnitude better than MySQL in transactional “not-just-select*fromtable” environments.
In addition, you can use it with non-GPL software (commercial software, BSD, Artistic…) without any problem; while mysql requires you to buy a commercial license to develop non-GPL software which uses its libraries.
There are many opensource databases that doesn’t get as much attention as they deserv. We have MaxDB (former SAPdb. Now marketed by MySQL AB), Postgresql and some interesting java based products.
The reason that MySQL is so succesful is that the current production version lacks a lot of features that “real” databases have. I’m thinking of things like stored procedures and triggers. Many people that build database driven web sites often have too little education to appreciate a more advanced product. They would probably just get lost.
Many people that build database driven web sites often have too little education to appreciate a more advanced product. They would probably just get lost.
…or maybe they just don’t need all those advanced features?
I agree that people are using MySQL just because it’s the most simple and because all their friends are using it but I’m not sure if these people would gain any benefit by using a true RDBMS like Firebird. Most webmasters I’ve met can’t even design a simple relational database properly. They lump all their fields in one or two tables and that’s it…
“In addition, you can use it with non-GPL software (commercial software, BSD, Artistic…) without any problem; while mysql requires you to buy a commercial license to develop non-GPL software which uses its libraries.”
So, they expect you to PAY for their libs if you are using it in your own product, which you are most likely going to be selling. Damn dirty savages!
I agree that people are using MySQL just because it’s the most simple and because all their friends are using it but I’m not sure if these people would gain any benefit by using a true RDBMS like Firebird. Most webmasters I’ve met can’t even design a simple relational database properly. They lump all their fields in one or two tables and that’s it…
You have just explained why MS Access and MS SQL Server are so popular, when they are pure garbage.
I work with databases all day at my job, and I’m not talking about tiny ones, one table contains 5 million rows, and another well over 10million rows. We use MS SQL server, MaxDB, and a little bit of mysql. All have their place. MS SQL Server is a good product, but it does have it’s limitations. (i.e. not distributed transactions across linked servers which are not sql servers)
But in a enterprise environment with people who have real experience with DBs SQL Server can be quite a good product. Just because it’s made by Microsoft doesn’t mean it’s crap.
On the Firebird front it’s a good DB, but it’s downfall is not good SMP support. We considered using it for our DB server which is a 8 processor Xeon server. And we determined that Firebird would just choke on the processors, in situations like that multiple processors actually slow the database down, which is not good.
Anyways, each database has it’s own place. I would say mysql and access are web/toy DBs, firebird, postgresql, and a few others ar mid tier, and then sql server, oracle, db2 top tier. Regards..Nate
My problem with all these seemingly popular DBs is that they all lack the feature of having interactive GUIs [easily] designed. Some effort is underway I hear as in Kexi, but to most people who have used MS-Access, demonstration of a DB without a GUI is a no starter.If the Linux community is ever successful in “slapping” a programable GUI on any of those many DBs, the DB will take off among the not so Linux comfortable. That’s my take.
Cb..
Jimbo, I just noticed a comparison of InterBase with MySQL and MS SQL on the IBPhoenix website (http://www.ibphoenix.com)
What is said there is almost 100% applicable to a Firebird comparison with those two dbs.
This is great news for all those that still use Interbase. Firebird is sometimes 30% faster than Interbase. And I hope they don’t have some of the bugs that are still found in Interbase.
What’s more. Firebird is the most free/Free/FrEe sql database server out there. And it has triggers, stored procedures, User Defined Functions , etc.
I invite anyone to take a deeper look at it
@Bernard
Thanks, I haven’t had time today to look at the website for any product comparisons. I used to use InterBase quite a bit back during my Delphi days. Borland did a great job of implementing native VCL controls for directly accessing some of the lower level features of IB. Even back then, it was a very robust product, though FireBird is based on the IB 6 source code so I don’t know for sure what is different between IB 7 and FireBird.
About using MySQL for websites… I would never touch a database system that didn’t have a thorough implementation and support for stored procedures and triggers. Not only do stored procedures help with data validation, but they considerably reduce network bandwidth when used in leu of dynamically generated SQL statements at the application level. And triggers, at the very least, are useful for maintaining data integrity (which should not all be left up to the application code itself). Why anybody would use MySQL for a production website is beyond me, especially if that site is high traffic.
“…Even back then, it was a very robust product, though FireBird is based on the IB 6 source code so I don’t know for sure what is different between IB 7 and FireBird.”
Firebird 1.0 was very based on IB 6.
Firebird 1.5 was rewritten in C++ and was very improved during the process.
The main difference between Firebird 1.5 and Interbase 7.1 is that Interbase 7.1 has better SMP support, whereas Firebird 1.5 performs generally better.
Firebird has two versions, one called Super Server, this is the faster, but if you have more than one processor you better set affinity to one of them. The other is the Classic Server, this one can use all the processors of the machine.
If you are running the Super Server on Linux then it should use all the processors as well, because Linux rocks. hehe. But if you are on Windows then you are a bit unlucky.
I am not the end of this kind of information. Anyone interested should check out the documentation and the mailling lists.
My problem with all these seemingly popular DBs is that they all lack the feature of having interactive GUIs [easily] designed. Some effort is underway I hear as in Kexi, but to most people who have used MS-Access, demonstration of a DB without a GUI is a no starter.
Well, I don’t think databases like Firebird are addressed to people using MS Access, anyway. I occasionally use it but only for prototyping. This might sound elitist but making things easier usually attract clueless/incompetent people that don’t know horse manure of what they’re doing… and I don’t think this is the goal of Firebird or PostgreSQL. I’m not saying that we should make things complex on purpose but I don’t think we should dumb them down to the lowest level either. My 2¢.
“I agree that people are using MySQL just because it’s the most simple and because all their friends are using it but I’m not sure if these people would gain any benefit by using a true RDBMS like Firebird. Most webmasters I’ve met can’t even design a simple relational database properly. They lump all their fields in one or two tables and that’s it…”
You have just explained why MS Access and MS SQL Server are so popular, when they are pure garbage.”
I take exception with that comparision of MS Access and MS SQL, sure, I maybe garbage but atleast I’ve never ruined someones data.
I work with databases all day at my job, and I’m not talking about tiny ones, one table contains 5 million rows, and another well over 10million rows. We use MS SQL server, MaxDB, and a little bit of mysql. All have their place. MS SQL Server is a good product, but it does have it’s limitations. (i.e. not distributed transactions across linked servers which are not sql servers)
But in a enterprise environment with people who have real experience with DBs SQL Server can be quite a good product. Just because it’s made by Microsoft doesn’t mean it’s crap.
The problem people like me have with MS SQL is not that it is Microsoft, heck, I use Microsoft Office X on a regular basis and love it. The problem is, however, if you choose MS SQL, you screw yourself into using Microsoft Windows.
Just look at the market share, if Microsoft were truely interested in getting their SQL database marketshare up there, they would have made it portable and available for other operating systems.
That is the main attraction people have with Sybase and Oracle, the fact that they’re not screwed into one operating system vendor. They can choose to migrate if they grow out of the operating system they’re using. With MS SQL, if you reach the limitations of Windows, you end up having to do a bit of juggling to keep things working.
The fact is, whether or not MS SQL is a good product is immaterial because ultimately what will decide whether of not it is a good product over all is the platform it runs on. When Windows is going crap, unfortunately the fall out ripples along the Microsoft product line where as with Sybase/Oracle, they can simply turn around and say, “well, move to [operating system], it provides better reliability”, so, in a nutshell, whether Microsoft like it or not, the success or failure of their operating system will have a rippled effect on the rest of their product range.
I take exception with that comparision of MS Access and MS SQL, sure, I maybe garbage but atleast I’ve never ruined someones data.
Ummm…. have you tried googling: “access data loss”?
And, yes, I have worked extensively with both Access and SQL server over the years, and no my opinion has nothing to do with it being a Microsoft product, just experience.
Listen you snobs, you may “sneer” at php “idiots”, “toy” DBs, and whatnot — but we’re actually out here creating cool Web sites that can run on just about any decent Web host on the planet. I do all the HTML, graphics, CSS, programming, database design, etc. — in other words, just about everything — on the sites I work on for myself and clients. Guess what? I can’t be an “expert” on everything. I’m going to use whatever is easy and fun. Guess what? PHP and MySQL is an easy, fun combination. And you know what? I’ll pit my “toy” Web site against anything you snobs can create in terms of functionality and looks. And you know what? THAT’s all that users care about. At the end of the day, your fancy database designs and 3 million lines of code are irrelevant. Does the site work? Do people like it? That’s all that matters. PHP and MySQL are used on some of the top sites on the planet. Too bad you snobs are stuck in your little programming ivory tower and missed the boat.
Jared
Naaaaaahhh… as long as it can’t penetrate the market, it remain irrelevant. Look at those good design software (in principal) such as ADA programming language, VMS OS, BeOS etc. All are slowly vanish but look at the most spitted software such as MS product or Linux (or even MySQL), they are alive and kicking.
And when your site’s done, it’ll look very pretty and nice, and probably work for a while. And then the client starts noticing bandwidth costs that scale badly, performance lags in the database, et cetera.
Nobody denies that it’s possible to design a functional system with no knowledge of database design. However, it’s in fact quite difficult to build an optimal database. The ability to use one less query may not sound like much, but think of Amazon.com. If they had one less query for every click on their website, do you know how much faster their database would respond?
Also, a lot of the highend features being discussed here are about data validation: making sure that the data being put into your database is in fact valid input. It’s safe guarding against your own mistakes. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes have bugs in things that I write. If the database system is intelligent enough to reject invalid inputs, it can save you from corrupting the database due to some stupid bug in your PHP.
Now you’re attacking straw men. Who said anything about Amazon.com queries? Optimizing your database access is an issue entirely unrelated to any particular database or programming language.
The point I’m trying to make is that there are *plenty* of sites out there that are reasonably popular and are built with off-the-shelf open source software using the LAMP platform. There are LOTS of talented people out there writing code for the LAMP platform all over the place — people who really know what they’re doing. It isn’t just for “newbie” programmers like me. If YOU don’t like the platform, that’s your prerogative. You can use Oracle/DB2/MS SQL/Java/.NET/Python/ColdFusion/whatever. But why should you be dictating what everyone else on the planet should be using for Web development?
What’s wrong with choice? Hmm?
Jared
Did I say you couldn’t choose?
And I’m not attacking a strawman. You pretty clearly said that all the advance database features being discussed were worthless. So I took the liberty of explaining how they might be useful.
I also never said one couldn’t use LAMP. In fact, I use it for things like my blog. But if you’re building a website with actual economic value, there are good reasons to at least consider something else. Unless of course you’re perfect and never have bugs in your code.
Nor did I ever discount that there aren’t a lot of very talented LAMP programmers. I know I’ve seen some very impressive things done with it.
The problem really is that LAMP offers very little insurance. The major point of high-end solutions is to make sure that even in the case of catastrophic failures, the economic damage is minimized. The other big point is to be able to scale to massive volumes of transactions. LAMP is not well suited for either of these.
So, let us recap this. You post whiningly about how everyone here is criticizing your favorite development platform. I respond explaining what the alternatives offer that it doesn’t. You respond accusing me of having favorites?
I’m perfectly willing to have an intelligent discussion about the merits of different database solutions. But not if you’re going to whine about it and insult me when I try to help.
Ah, if you did your homework you would have known that on Linux/Unix you can use the classic version and it will scale with as many processors as the OS can handle, and on 2.6.x that is pretty high.
<We considered using it for our DB server which is a 8 processor Xeon server. And we determined that Firebird would just choke on the processors>
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Now you’re attacking straw men. Who said anything about Amazon.com queries? Optimizing your database access is an issue entirely unrelated to any particular database or programming language.
====
And no, I’m not strawman’ing. As I said, one of the two major reasons for using a high-end system is scalability. Such systems go to great lengths to save a single lookup, since if you’re having 20 million lookups per day, that can really add up.
So it’s not entirely true that it’s independent of your database and language. Things like stored procedures can save what might seem like insignificant amounts of time to you that could really add up in a system of scale, such as the example I used: Amazon.com.
There are about 20 GUI admin programs for Firebird, many of them good and free.
A really nice commercial one is IBexpert.
Go check out http://www.ibphoenix.com and look in the contributed downloads section under Admin Tools
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And I’m not attacking a strawman. You pretty clearly said that all the advance database features being discussed were worthless. So I took the liberty of explaining how they might be useful.
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I’m sorry, I believe you interpreted my little rant in an entirely wrong manner. I was mad at the *attitude* of those folks who acted like anyone using a LAMP or similar type of platform couldn’t possibly possess any talent or skill or be able to create a reasonably popular Web site. I never said advanced database features were worthless.
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I also never said one couldn’t use LAMP. In fact, I use it for things like my blog. But if you’re building a website with actual economic value, there are good reasons to at least consider something else. Unless of course you’re perfect and never have bugs in your code.
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Nobody’s perfect, and if I were building a large-scale Web site for a high-profile company, I certainly would be considering all of my alternatives.
You seems like a fairly open-minded fellow. So am I, actually. Therefore, you were not the type of person I was targeting in my original rant!
Take care,
Jared
I think that I was one of the folks you were “ranting” about.
You know, I actually bought a PHP/MySQL development book a year back, and I thought it was quite humorous. Over the course of the book, the reader (me) was to build a complete online storefront system with a shopping cart and order status system. Well, while the book was showing me how to use the “power” of PHP/MySQL to run several queries to do whatever it was that the book wanted me to do, I thought about how using a REAL database system, I could execute a single call to a stored procedure that would return what these multiple queries and whatever PHP code were trying doing. So multiply this times many thousand and see how much bandwidth is being wasted by the great LAMP combo (you are running your database server on a different machine than your web server for security right?) I have no real problem with MySQL (it’s kind of like using a souped up Lotus Approach or Paradox) except that one of the big selling point for using Linux as your web server is the supposed greatness of LAMP. Reminds me of all these ASP monkeys who think that Access is a great back-end for running a website.
One year ago I had to install a server with Interbase/Firebird SuperServer. Well I wanted MySQL, but to do him a favor I agreed with Firebird.
So, we had a huge database and after inserting @5.000 RecordSets the server was nearly responeless because it ran out of memory (512MB). We doubled the RAM and then we could nearly instert 10.000 Recordsets till the server collapse.
A little study of Interbase/Firebird-KnowledgeBase showed, that the superserver has a serious problem. It didn’t freed the memory that it uses for a thread (each insert is a thread) till the server is shutdown.
I hope they fixed that because this is not the way a DB should work!
We kicked Firebad out and use MySQL.. no pain since them.. except one user created problem.
Uh.. and Firebird is still banned from FreeBSD ports,.. at least since my last CVSUP
> Uh.. and Firebird is still banned from FreeBSD ports,..
> at least since my last CVSUP
Hmmm?
———————-
muchbox# cd /usr/ports/databases/firebird
muchbox# make fetch
NOTE: If the work directory is on an NFS mount, you will
require NFS client locking support for the build to
succeed. Currently this is only available on FreeBSD 5.0
or greater.
WARNING: The on-disk structure of the databases has
changed since version 1.0.x.
Cancel this installation now and backup your databases
if you have not already done so.
===> Vulnerability check disabled
>> Firebird-1.5.0.4288.src.tar.bz2 doesn’t seem to exist in /usr/ports/distfiles/.
>> Attempting to fetch from http://us.dl.sourceforge.net/firebird/.
Receiving Firebird-1.5.0.4288.src.tar.bz2 (4293102 bytes): 100% (ETA 00:00)
4293102 bytes transferred in 60.0 seconds (69.87 kBps)
———————-
<p>… that Firebird doesn’t get the press or attention that it deserves. Of the major OSS database software around, Firebird is probably the most powerful and feature-full. MySQL is a mere toy compared to it.</p>
<p>Probably because many people are already satisfied with Postgres? 🙂 I now believe Postgres is really, according to its tagline, really the most advanced open source database out there right now. Firebird 1.x really lacks many things right now: longer index limit, free replication and text search solution, etc.</p>
<p>What’s more. Firebird is the most free/Free/FrEe sql database server out there. And it has triggers, stored procedures, User Defined Functions , etc.</p>
No it’s not. Postgres with its BSD license is more liberal than IPL/MPL/IDPL. SQLite is even in the public domain, so practically you can do anything you want with it.
“Most webmasters I’ve met can’t even design a simple relational database properly. They lump all their fields in one or two tables and that’s it…
Then whats the point of using a database backend? <shakes head> these guys need to stick to flat files.
5 milion rows, tjeee…i think MySQL can handle
over 5 bilion.
http://www.mysql.com/documentation/mysql/bychapter/manual_Introduct…
Postgres is even worse it never complains.
MS SQL is a very weak product from the biggest software house in the world, with all its money, programmers, marketing and evil it cannot even beat a simple open-source database like FireBird or MySQL. Compared to DB2 PostgreSQL or Oracle, MS SQL would be notepad. I can understand that you use MS SQL because of the programs you run but if there is a possiblity to get ride of, please do. Our company once made that error a we runned a database system on windows 2000 with MS SQL, the horror, while i have to admit its speed was ok its was a hog to maintain and it sometimes brought down the whole system with its CPU and memory hungry attitude. We swithed completly to PostgreSQL, Suse and Redhat in 2002. I am looking at Firebird now to see if it can replace some areas where PostgreSQL is more slow, like web applications. Also PHP 5.0 has a nice database (i think its based on Firebird, build in and that is very very nice for building web applications..
Firebird is great but is coming a bit too late to the party, PostgreSQL seems to already own the same nice of “full-featured free databases”, and MySQL the rest of the free DB market.
As to those who make fun of PHP & MySQL users, well guess what the world’s most visited web site runs ?
PostgreSQL doesn’t yet have native windows port so there is a niche for Firebird. Postgre guys have been promising native windows version for ages now but who knows when they finally deliver.
What do PHP, MySQL and Firebird have that PostgreSQL doesn’t ?
Whether we like or not, Windows is used as a development platform by many, even though the deployment might be on a *nix server.
But there is a version of PostgreSQL that works on Windows it seems, but it’s commercial (so this is free ?), and I don’t know if it runs on Cygwin or not.
Firebird is very lightweight and even has an embeddable version and the server version doesn’t need a database administrator to take care of it.
It is interesting to see that a rewrite in C++ does make sense to the developers. It shows that C++ really offers enough of a advantage if even redesigning an existing codebase of this size makes sense.
Postgre will be available on Windows in 7.5 or 8.0 (although it probably will not be threaded/”superserver”). Other things that FB 1.x has like nested transaction (savepoint) and 2-phase commit are being worked on, possibly will appear in 7.5 or 8.0. Postgres developers are not too keen on embedding though. So yes, there are still slightly different target market for both.
Anyway, I’m happy that both DB exist. If not, we’re stuck with only MySQL (shudder…). I find MaxDB/SAPDB complicated, so once again I say I’m happy that we have FB and Postgres.
If you have a cross-platform app that requires a real database server, Firebird is the only game in town – that’s free.
You can use xbase for a non-SQL embedded database engine.
You can use PostgreSQL for serious unix-only solutions. Still no Windows port of it.
You can use MySQL for light-weight unix-only solutions. The Windows port is not free.
If you wrote, say a stock market graphing application, that you wanted to run on most systems – your GUI could be Java or C++/wxWidgets, and your database could be Firebird. Your app would be able to run on: Windows, Linux, Unix, OSX, and FreeBSD.
If you’re *nix-only, by all means go with MySQL or PostgreSQL.
There is only one serious open source cross-platform database server – Firebird.
And for the guy who comlained about the Firebird group making the Mozilla guys change their name, the Mozilla guys should have done a little checking before they renamed themselves “Firebird”. That was an amazingly silly thing for them to have done, and I’m glad to see they corrected it.
I import over 300,000 records per day with FB 1.5 and no leaks, And I have been doing it since the very early Release canidates from almost 1 year ago.
FB 1.5 is a huge improvement over FB 1.x and IB 6.x.
It is rock solid, completly rewritten in C++ and now has support for case and colese statements which FB 1.x and IB 6.x did not have, plus lots of other cool stuff.
Read the release notes for more info.
@local, I have used Firebird and InterBase, in both architectures, on both Win32 and Linux. I haven’t seen this alleged memory leak in either IB6, FB1.02, FB1.03, or the RCs for FB1.5. Maybe I was just lucky not to do it the same way you did. But I have never seen anything like the kind of problem you observed.
I have recently loaded individual tables with up to 20 million rows, inserting up to 2 million rows at a time (although committing every 100,000 or so), without running into this problem. This was on FB 1.5 SuperServer win32, so maybe it was an issue, and it has been fixed.
Incidentally, both SS and the Classic architecture can be used on non-Win32 platforms and benefit from SMP. Furthermore, if you really want speed, I would suggest using Linux than Win32 – I have had exactly the same data aggregation functions running as SPs on the same database under Linux and Win32. Even though the Linux machine theoretically had only 60% of the power of the Win32 machine, I saw a 1000% performance increase on Linux. In both cases forced writes were on, and there was no other activity happening than the rest of the system simply ticking over (these functions were aggregating approx 10,000 rows down to 1,000 so it is not as though they were short-lived queries that could be influence by minor system activity).
And as for people who say ‘just use PostgreSQL’. I have this to say 1) Firebird is much simpler to use, and offers as many standard SQL features 2) there are vastly more client tools available for Firebird, 3) in addition to all the other platforms for which there is a server, there has also been a Win32 server for donkeys years. That is not to deny that PostgreSQL has some great features that Firebird does not have – just that none of those features are more important to me than the three I just outlined.
I have a question for the Firebird users out there: How thorough is its MVCC support? For example, in PostgreSQL, I can start a transaction and issue ALTER TABLE and DROP TABLE commands. Only that transaction will see those changes – other transactions continue normally. I know MySQL can’t do this. Can Firebird?
I’m not trying to start a flamewar, just asking out of curiosity.
Firebird will still be an attractive option to me
now if PostgreSQL can come up with a really stable (and rockin’) win32 port…wow…Firebird will have MAJOR competition
Check out http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers-win32/ — that’s the developer list for the Win32 port of PostgreSQL. While the PG team has been promising a Win32 version for a while now, it looks like it will ship in 7.5. There’s been a lot of work on the port lately.
This email – http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2004-02/msg00666.php – from 19 February has some information on the Win32 port, as well as lots of updates on PG development.
5 milion rows, tjeee…i think MySQL can handle
over 5 bilion.
http://www.mysql.com/documentation/mysql/bychapter/manual_Introduct…..
Postgres is even worse it never complains.
MS SQL is a very weak product from the biggest software house in the world, with all its money, programmers, marketing and evil it cannot even beat a simple open-source database like FireBird or MySQL. Compared to DB2 PostgreSQL or Oracle, MS SQL would be notepad. I can understand that you use MS SQL because of the programs you run but if there is a possiblity to get ride of, please do. Our company once made that error a we runned a database system on windows 2000 with MS SQL, the horror, while i have to admit its speed was ok its was a hog to maintain and it sometimes brought down the whole system with its CPU and memory hungry attitude. We swithed completly to PostgreSQL, Suse and Redhat in 2002. I am looking at Firebird now to see if it can replace some areas where PostgreSQL is more slow, like web applications. Also PHP 5.0 has a nice database (i think its based on Firebird, build in and that is very very nice for building web applications..
Thanks for your response. I realize mysql might support the rows, but the problem is all the advanced features that we need that mysql does not support. We need Triggers, Stored Procedures, Linked Server, and Distributed Transactions. SQL Server works fine for now, we are actually maxing out the capability of it now, and trying to go to a multiple database system. We are actually using a Open Source project MaxDB because it supports a lot of the features we need.
We looked at Postgres and it looked good except that you need to vacuum the database after inserts. We average around 250,000 inserts each day, with each insert a trigger is fired which performs an update. At this rate the updates would require vacuuming all the time, and we can not have any down time.
Firebird looked good, but lack of documentation, and lack of solid SMP support. We would love to switch away from SQL Server, but it is so engrained that it is quite a large process, weeks and weeks to move simple systems to other DB servers.
nate
I do not think you will see the same behaviour in Firebird as you are describing for PostgreSQL – once the DDL statements are committed I believe they will be seen be everyone. I would be surprised if DB2 or Oracle worked as you described.
I can see situations where it might be advantageous to have what you describe. Undoubtedly PostgreSQL has some good features that Firebird does not have, and vice-versa.
Ok, so I’m downloading and compiling FB 1.5 now on Linux. Are there any docs for verison 1.5? All I can find on firebird.sourceforge.net are a bunch of ancient manuals for old versions of Interbase. The doc/ directory in the 1.5 source tarball isn’t much better.
Where do I need to look?