Stanley Bradbury wrote:
Ralf Wiebicke wrote:
Note that 10.2.2 is made from another svn branch than the development
branch (trunk). Revision numbers on different branches are not
directly
comparable.
Hi Ralf -
I'm glad to see that you are taking Derby for a test drive. Being
included in latest JAVA release will introduction Derby to a much
wider audience than ever before. One thing that you and others will
notice about Derby is that it is not just a database of a different
color, notably it has a very small footprint and so lacks some
out-of-the-box features of larger, mainstream systems. This can cause
some frustration. A little background will help you understand and
possibly anticipate some of the differences between Derby and other
databases. The software was first released in 1997 by Cloudscape Inc.
as a product called JBMS. In his article / tutorial Pan Pantziarka
provides a brief history of the software at:
http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/11/08/java_database_derby/
JBMS (later renamed Cloudscape) was designed primarily for embedded
use hence the lack of features (thought of as administrative) such as
RENAME, GRANT/REVOKE, etc. The underlying engine, however, is very
solid and easy to deploy and use. Currently many of these useful
features are being added by the Derby development community with
minimal impact of the software footprint. And, as you can see from
the following list of software, Derby in it's current state is the
choice on many software projects because of it's portability and ease
of use in production environments:
http://wiki.apache.org/db-derby/UsesOfDerby
In the meantime, even though these differences can prove frustrating,
I hope you will keep your eye on the product and provide additional
feedback on the features you consider important but lacking in Derby.
I personally don't mind the limitations and sometimes welcome them.
They force me to be more forward thinking in my db design. And for most
things Derby is perfect, I use it most often for quick prototyping and
proof of concept builds. Then when it comes time to build out production
systems I will often move to a larger Database product. I often find
that Derby works fine even in production environments. You just have to
think ahead about what changes to the structure could happen down the road.
Paul
