Re: For Windows platform: which Dia plugin or App to simplify design and documentation of small Database Applications ?

[Andrey Repin <anrdaemon freemail ru>]

Greetings, Paul Smith!

> @  Andrey
> Thank you for your suggestion of MySQL Workbench.  Interesting lead.
> With MySQL in the name I had assumed not worth investigating for use with
> HSQLDB (when choosing a RDBMS I was looking for one adhering closely to SQL
> standards and suitable for a low power platform such as a nettop, so I
> rejected MySQL as read it was not very compliant, also the Oracle takeover
> sounds bad news for it).

I think, you are confusing DB engine with DB development/administration tools
here. MySQL workbench is the latter.
I'm in no position to judge it's applicability to your specific task, was just
offering an option.
If we speak of MySQL DB (which is off-topic, so I won't be continuing this
discussion any further than this post), it can be configured in many different
ways, and fine-tuned for specific task between quite large boundaries.
That including the choice of the data storage (MyISAM for data rarely modified
but sensitive for reading access times, InnoDB for a powerful relational
database structure, and other options), memory usage (f.e. if you know you
would normally not perform thousand-rows long requests, you can reduce
processing buffers, but increase connection pool to allow more connections to
be made to the database at the same time) and network productivity (including
(or excluding) traffic compression - there's little sense in wasting CPU power
to compress traffic, when DB and application both hosted on the same machine).

Speaking of compliance, this is more of a driver question, than a database
question. I've been using standard (libmysql) driver with PHP for ages, but I
was a bit disappointed by it's features. Then I tried MySQLi, and finally made
my decision to change over to PDO drivers. From that point, developing
cross-platform applications made really easier. However, you have to watch
what you're doing, but just a bit. Don't get overexcited, don't use
questionable constructions - and you'll have very little issues porting your
application to use any modern RDBMS. Some will "just work", some will require
a bit of query tweaking. Or you can take a bold move and restrict yourself to
ODBC... which would be rather inefficient, but extremely portable.

And to the Oracle takeover... MySQL is a community project with open source.

> However I see the Wiki states *from ver 5.2.41* it
> adds support for a few other specific RDBMS, and generically for any ODBC
> connection.
> Spent half an hour skimming the User Manual - which seems quite impressive
> at 466 pages. Googling also brings up many other PDF's on use (with MySQL)
>  I have 2 concerns before delving further:  the Manual states hardware
> requirments are 2-core 2GHz + 4GB RAM.

It is for server or for application? O.o
Either way, let me offer you some insight.
My database and web (and some other apps, but mainly it's a DB/web) server is
a 850MHz Athlon with 512Mb RAM.
It have no [significant] issues importing the EVE-online data export. That's
about 300Mb SQL script, 10-15min for import on my hardware, 3-5 on more modern
system. Into InnoDB(sic!) tables. Import into MyISAM would be even faster.
You can imagine, selecting data from the DB is even easier, than inserting.
However, MySQL is the main memory hog on the server, using ~300Mb at any given
time. Thankfully, I don't need more from my server, so I can live with it.

> My HW is 2-core 1.6GHz + 2GB RAM,
> FHD Monitor, Win7 32bit. CalEvens.com review of Community Edition in 2009
> states *'its dog slow but best there is*'. * Is todays Windows version
> faster or slower ?*  Secondly, the Manual makes no mention of HSQL support
> - only 'any ODBC compliant db'... being new to server/client, do you know
> if its likely to 'simplify design and documentation of small [20 table
> HSQLDB] Database Applications' ?

I have no experience with HSQLDB, except conversions I performed from it to
MySQL for one Java tool. (We had to make a bridge between multiple UI
front-ends, a database back-end and a DB populating script, that was also
multi-user, so HSQLDB was a bit less entertaining option, than a more
multi-user oriented DB.)


--
WBR,
Andrey Repin (anrdaemon freemail ru) 27.10.2012, <03:35>

Sorry for my terrible english...