Recently I started a new project in which I need to choose another database besides MySQL. Since then, I had been using MySQL for basically everything, but given the MySQL licensing scheme and a few restrictions of the project itself, this time I had to use something else. So I choose Firebird SQL.
But there’s something about Firebird that always bothered me: why so few developers actually know and use Firebird? Basically (at least here in Brazil) I only see it being used among Delphi developers. Why isn’t it as popular as MySQL or PostgreSQL? Given its features (listed below), can we say that the project lives an unfair situation?
Firebird have several features which makes it a great choice:
- Really free:: contraty to MySQL, you can use Firebird in your commercial applications without any fee or legal problem. (BTW: I know that PostgreSQL have this advantage too)
- All the basic features of large RDBMS:: stored procedures, triggers, A.C.I.D. compliance, online backup, generators, referential integrity, etc…
- Small footprint: had you seen its embeddable version? Just amazing: in less then 1 Mb you have all the features of the default one without cutting anything!
- Low hardware requirements: basically, if something computes, it can run Firebird.
- Available in all the major OS platforms: Linux, Windows, Mac OS, Solaris and others
- Reasonable performance: Firebird performance remains between MySQL and PostgreSQL.
- Really active project: despite its low popularity, it’s a quite active project. In april/2009, for example, was announced the 2.5 beta version of the project.
- Databases with unlimited size: the database size limit is determined by the filesystem in which the database is stored. But, if your database exceed its limit its always possible to split it in several files.
(the largest database known have 960 Gb link) - 100% SQL 92 compability
- Connectivity: basically you can access a Firebird SQL through any programming language
My experience with Flamerobin is being really pleasant, but it’s really sad to see that since I wrote my Microsoft Access to Firebird database converter (MDB2FDB http://www.firebase.com.br/fb/downloads.php?categ=8) in 2006 that the Firebird popularity hadn’t changed at all!
Since I really like this software, and I think that its current popularity situation is unfair, maybe it could be interesting to list some actions that may help this project. So, here is my list:
- Just use Firebird: really! Just give it a try. You’ll get amazed by the amount of functionality can fit in it’s small footprint.
- You may donate some money for the projec too:
link: http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=ffoundation&id=contributions - May also be a sponsor:
link: http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=ffoundation&id=sponsor_howto - If you miss some tool for it, you may build your own and then share it with others, just as I did with my MDB2FDB converter.
- Write anything about it.
Of course, I couldn’t finish this post without guessing (just guesses) the reasons why Firebird SQL is so unpopular if compared to MySQL or PostgreSQL:
- There’s no big player like Sun/Oracle or IBM supporting it right now.
- The official website is terrible (http://www.firebirdsql.org). Seems futile, but the first impression of the project is horrible. Makes you think it’s stalled.
Firebird’s biggest sponsor today is IBPhoenix , which main business IS Firebird. But even it’s website falls in the same problem. - The fact of being Delphi related since it’s begning. With Delphi’s decadence, its popularity just floundered with it.
- Poor documentation
Maybe things may change to Firebird SQL after Oracle bought Sun (many MySQL users are getting scared (I see no reason for this by the way)) and may play with Firebird, but it’s something improbable to happen. :)
Of course, these are just my opinions about it. I really whould like to know yours. Why do you think so few developers are using Firebird today?
I think your comment re. so few developers use Firebird is incorrect, you are probably just not looking in the right places. Firstly, there is a very sucessful Firebird conference that takes place in Brazil every year, and there are also a large number of Brazilian developers who are Firebird Foundation members.
Since 2004 Firebird is averaging between 500,000 to a million downloads a year.
The fact that Firebird is used by a large number of Delphi developers is no surprise, since Firebird is based on the original open sourced version of InterBase.
One of the small problems re. the websites, is that Firebird as a whole is developed and managed by a small core team of people. All of these people are busy improving Firebird, testing Firebird, porting Firebird, writing release notes and just generally trying to earn a living. As such although we know that we could improve the websites, this work tends to get put back, mainly be because we always seem to have other things to do.
Hi Paul,
actually, I agree with you: but as you said, it’s always in Brazil, and actually by a small (which once was huge) niche: Delphi Developers.
I really whould like to see it being more popular OUTSIDE Brazil. It’s great to know that now Firebird have something like 500.000 to a million downloads/year. But the case here is: if there are so many downloads/year, why can´t I see articles and posts about Firebird OUTSIDE the Firebird community? I mean: where are the big projects using Firebird? The main question remains: why does I see so many comments about MySQL and PostgreSQL and not about Firebird?
About the Firebird team, what should I say: they’re great! Actually, I think they are heroes, because Firebird ***really*** shines, and doesn´t have a huge player like Sun/Oracle or IBM behind it.
As I mentioned, about the websites, I really think that, besides being a small problem, it still is a problem. Many times I showed these websites to others and the reaction were pretty bad.
Actually, I feel kind of honored to see someone from IBPhoenix posting a comment on my blog. Thanks Paul!
Hi,
Could I possibly help you out in creating a new website? I am an amateur web developer. Please contact me @ eswarjj@gmail.com. I might take some time because this is something I would do in my spare time. So, all I would need from you is some info from time to time over a period of time.
The 960Gb link is down.
Also, I use mysql just because of the great number of avaliable tools to manage it: PostgreSQL and Firebird seems to have lots less.
pgAdmin3 is better than any tool I’ve found for MySQL by leagues. Also firebird has Flamerobin, which again is better than anything MySQL has by a similar order of magnitude. php_myadmin is not even comparable to those two mentioned tools.
Please, if you know of a useful, cross platform tool for MySQL, stop keeping it a secret! :-)
In fact is not down, is just that you forgot the http. It happens to me all the time.
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I had tried FirebirdSQL with one of my project, some years back (v1.5) and still keep an eye on the current developments in the project. In my opinion the biggest drawback is documentation. I mean, if you compare the documentation for firebirdsql with other database documentations, you can see why it is not as popular as it should have been. There is no user manual which can be used as a reference point for learning and using FirebirdSQL. Otherwise it is having a good nos of features under it’s belt. I hope that the FirebirdSQL team will note the lack of proper documentation and in future we may see the rise in popularity for this good database system.
because of obvious reasons? because sqlite is better? no?
sqlite is only “better” in the use case where you have a single application and don’t need much scalability.
I’m the organizer of the Firebird Developers Day conference in Brazil, and author of two Firebird books. The FDD conference usually has 500-600 people in every edition. I estimate that 70% of this people are Delphi users. This number probably was bigger in the past, but not anymore. We have many people from .NET and Java world, and even people using Ruby, PHP, etc.
IMHO, FB has really (many many)^100 users around the world, but as the project is mostly ignored by the specialized media, it gives the WRONG impression that it is “small”. So, it is more a marketing problem than anything else (yep, the project has no marketing at all). I agree about the site.
BTW, you can check the english reports about past editions of FDD at http://www.firebirddevelopersday.com.br
Also, we did a recent poll in FirebirdNews.org, and “only” 65% of the people who answered are Delphi users, check it out at: http://www.firebirdnews.org/?page_id=976
Hi Carlos,
I follow your work for some years now in the Firebird community, and it’s really great!
I agree with you. I think that there’s a HUGE marketing problem in the Firebird project. Actually, we can say that the brazilian community had made a far better job on that front then the Firebird main project itself (thanks to people like you).
btw: eu também sou brasileiro, e é uma honra pra mim ver neste post alguém tão importante nesta comunidade expondo suas opiniões. :)
Thanks for the nice words ;)
Obrigado pelos elogios ;)
As a guy who does database+code+web stuff for a living, having looked at the firebird website, I am never touching that DB ever. I don’t care how good it is. That website is a crime.
After my eyes stopped bleeding, I see that FB certainly has a lot of documentation, but it’s a rambling incoherent mess. It looks like you’ve got as much, if not more than the Postgres folks. Focus it into one coherent tome (like postgres, can you tell I’m baised?), drag that website out of 1997, and you will have a lot more people taking it seriously.
My major criticism of Firebird though, blobs.
Right so you’ve got this type, here’s the magic, that can have it’s own sub-type! Yes I know its pure genius. But it gets better, you see this data type can’t be discriminated at all, there’s no “select * from foo where blobcol like ‘%bar%'”, you’re either reading the entire thing, or writing the entire thing.
Make FlameRobin able to manipulate blobs in some fashion, or preferably kill off blobs entirely. Or you could make it so blobs can be queried.
Maybe my concerns have already been addressed, I would know that if the documentation was sane. (this may sound like a troll but I’m trying to help, I’m just not good at it)
I get really annoyed when people who know little or nothing about a subject get an air of authority and start criticizing it. Firebird Blob fields are VERY useful. Instead of “Select * from foo where blobcol like ‘%bar%'”, you simply use “Select * from foo where blobcol containing ‘bar'”. You can also use any of the hundreds of UDFs available for blob manipulation, or write your own. Blob subtypes can be used to write your own blob filters – for example, you can declare your own subtype for “Compressed RTF” and then validate that you’re actually using a compressed RTF blob inside the “decompress()” UDF that you write for it.
So maybe, before you make a fool of yourself again by criticizing something you obviously know NOTHING about, you could spend a half hour reading its documentation. If you’re not such a hard-core cheapskate that you believe that NOBODY should ever make a dime off a piece of software, you could invest $50 in “The Firebird Book”, which is a very well organized, comprehensive source of documentation, that would have explained all this blob stuff to you pretty quickly.
I think, Why should I? What does it do that Postgres doesn’t?
– Free: Postgres has it
– Features: Postgres have ‘em
– Footprint: OK, Firebird might be better, but I’ve run PG on some pretty old machines
– Hardware reqs: (not sure how this is different than footprint)
– All platforms: Postgres does it
– Performance: Postgres is pretty fast (for write-heavy applications, it’s faster than MySQL)
– Active: Postgres sure is
– Size: Postgres databases commonly are tens of TB or more; Yahoo is apparently running a modified Postgres with a 2 PB database
– “SQL 92”: doesn’t mean much to me, since a lot of features you need (like CREATE INDEX!) are not in any SQL spec
– Any language: I checked my favorite SQL bindings, and they support many different interfaces (Sqlite to Oracle, and lots in between), but not Firebird
So based on these criteria (and I’ve never used it, so it may have other cool features) it really seems to come down to “Takes less memory than Postgres”. Which can be a great reason, if you’re working in a limited-resource environment. But for most use cases I’ve seen, you’re either in a big server world where you can add $50 of memory trivially, or you’re in a tiny embedded space where you want SQLite or even BDB. What exactly is the Firebird use case?
Great points!
In my case the main reasons for less attention are:
– bad documentation
– low marketing visibility, then hard to defend on decision makers
– the Postgres/MySQL options
Currently I am using both Postgres and MySQL
Afaik, Firebird is much simpler to configure than PG (well, actually, you only need to fine tune firebird “by hand” in specific situations). Also, some features of PG are hummm… questionable…, for example, do we really need to have different languages support in triggers/procedures? PSQL + UDFs always did everything I needed, and I see no reason why I should stop writing in PSQL and start writing procs in Pascal, even when I love Pascal ;-)
I do not follow PG, but I remember that it was not able to do a full SWEEP in the database without exclusive access to it (what can be a problem for systems running 24×7).
Anyway, both PG and FB are open source databases so, people should use the one who satisfies their needs better. What is good for me, may not be good for you (and vice-versa).
“I do not follow PG, but I remember that it was not able to do a full SWEEP in the database without exclusive access to it (what can be a problem for systems running 24×7).”
This has not been the case for many, MANY years.
I normally use just the built-in pl/pgSQL language for writing functions, but, in an enterprise level database, you may have MANY different users who have different comfort levels with the different languages. Why not let the user select the language that THEY feel most comfortable with, or are most productive with?
What I find cool in Firebird :
– Firebird Event : http://www.firebirdsql.org/doc/whitepapers/events_paper.pdf
I don’t know if it exist but I don’t find in doc
– Common Table Expressions (CTEs) : http://www.firebirdsql.org/rlsnotesh/rlsnotes210.html#rnfb210-cte which is not implemented in many database (Postgres still not have (but scheduled soon))
– Easy to migrate from one version to a superior one (just one backup in old version and the restore in the new one).
Great. I didn’t know Firebird Events or CTEs. Really cool.
Actually Pg does have support for events.
I wrote a guide in my native language for Firebird and started researching for other databases that support events, and only Pg (other then Firebird) support them.
My favorite part of the Firebird webpage is how it claims to be “Innovative RDBMS software that’s going where you’re going”, and right below that: “Next Event: CANCELLED”. :-)
I think Firebird is good. I’ve ever used it once for my stand alone project.
Firebird needs lot of improvement. What lacks i notice compared to mysql is builtin sql functions and query simplification. Instead of relying on additional UDF library, it could be better to inject the functions in the main engine.
Let’s take an example, in mysql to show fields i can simply do SHOW FIELDS FROM TABLEX. Very simple, using common sql syntax.
Second is the documentation is not good enough. A progress documentation in chm format will be great.
Advanced sample code in interfacing with any language is very minim.
As i code using PHP, the sample code available mainly is using interbase, not firebird :(. Improvement in this part can be marketing tool to make firebird more populer.
Anyway, it’s real good Database. Bravo Firebird !
I can think of a few reasons php web developers might not use it:
– mysql is often installed by default on mac/linux
– the php, apache and mysql combo have been around for so long, that’s what people learn from the get go
– because LAMP has been around so long, there is so much support info and books about it
– mysql does everything 99% of sites need, why bother learning something else
For the love of god, learn the difference between “its” and “it’s”.
Sorry about that. :)
Fixed. (I guess)
And you know anything in Portuguese?
I’m developing a UML to RDB code generator and Firebird is one of the DBMS that I support.
So far I’m happy with the expressiveness of its Data definition language. I’ve been able to generate in Firebird more or less the same elements I’m able to generate in other more well-known DBMS. It even has sequences to be able to use auto-increment fields. A couple of annoying thins are: 1- Having to drop all objects linked (triggers, indexes,…) to the table before dropping the table itself and 2 – no support for the CASCADE and SET NULL options for the ON DELETE and ON UPDATE constructs in foreign keys.
“no support for the CASCADE and SET NULL options for the ON DELETE and ON UPDATE constructs in foreign keys.”
Afair, this was always supported in FB.
Yeah, you are right, I was looking at the wrong generator class when writing the comment. My fault. Thanks for pointing that out!
Thanks for the interesting article. I’d actually kind of forgotten about Firebird SQL having looked at in the past. I’ve read comments on Reddit that Firebird SQL lacks decent python drivers – if that’s so and if it’s true for a range of other languages I guess that’s going to slow down use of it. What language are you using it with ?
BTW I don’t think their website is that bad … I’ve seen worse websites from people who are expecting to take money off you !
Currently I’m using it with Java and Groovy (and with some legacy Delphi code too). And the Jaybird drive, as the ODBC Drivers are quite good.
Python Driver for Firebird is very stable in fact is used for qa testing
here is my full response to the reddit thread
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8fq27/why_so_few_developers_are_using_firebird_sql/c095z1u
In my opinion, FB is a very robust, powerful database. The lack of documentation, I think, is the biggest problem of the project: Do you know another Firebird book apart from the Helen Borrie’s one?
Other Open Source projects such as PHP and MySQL are winners because they offer very good documentation, particularly the PHP project, in which the community can provide comments and code snippets in the documentation of every single function and language construct. The PHP website isn’t too pretty, and it hasn’t been so bay many years. In fact, I think is ugly. Ugly, yes, but functional. It is a real treasure of documentation.
good review..
i too agree that the web site of the project need a rework.
it gives a feeling that this is just a child play.
And if you phone now, you’ll get a spell checker for free!
The web site needs a modern look – absolutely. But what’s even worse is the lack of documentation. I bought a book but it covers only Firebird 1.5. Firebird needs documentation like MySQL has.
Then there is the problem with the PHP PDO driver :-( which forces me to use ODBC or ibase_* extension.
Above all these shortcomings Firebird is a great database! I use it for all my new developments.
Interesting article. I knew Firebird by name, but haven’t looked at it closely. So, yes, despite a good, active community, I think it is much less known/used than MySQL, PostgreSQL, or even SQLite. Not much press/blog/article coverage on the Net.
BTW, I wonder how it compares to SQLite for small projects.
Note to Steve Summer: it is nice to have a good book on Firebird, but some how you have to be already “sold” to Firebird (convinced that’s the DB you need) to invest $50 in a book on the topic…
burito: Flamerobin might be excellent, but the few screenshots I saw weren’t that convincing (better than phpMyAdmin? Mmm…). Note that SQuirreL SQL Client has a Firebird plugin. It is an excellent database manager.
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As punishment for “making” Firefox change it’s name!!!!
j/k =)
I think firebird is excelent!!!, i’m going to install it
It doesn’t support on SMP hardware. Super server is practically unusable.
Classic least has separate processes for each connection.
I use SuperServer in several customers. No problem at all. It just not uses more than one processor. If you want SMP, use Classic, and yes, it is one process for connection. If you dont like to have so many process running, use SuperClassic (available in Firebird 2.5, currently in Beta).
Ugh, I liked! So clear and positively.
Good Article. After using MySQL for years I’m in the market for a new database. My main reason for looking for another database is my concern for what Oracle will do with MySQL now that they own it. I can see Oracle supporting Java, and Virtual Box, however I don’t see where MySQL fits in the Oracle business model.
Well: I believe that MySQL will be just fine. Oracle won’t destroy a monopoly (on the web at least) that they just acquired. It whould be extremely dumb.
By the way, they already owned InnoDB and actually continued it’s development. So I think we’ll see the same behavior in MySQL
What sort of replication tools are available for Firebird? Postgres has various options like Slony and PGCluster. An awful lot of databases need some sort of replication solution.
Firebird has a lot of replication tools available… Some of them are free, others are comercial. Check the page http://www.firebase.com.br/fb/downloads.php?categ=12 for some of them (sorry, it is in portuguese, but you can find the tools names and use google).
in English http://www.firebirdfaq.org/faq249/
I have wrote last month a post about the problems I think that firebird should take care of in my opinion:
http://idkn.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/things-that-bother-me-a-lot-in-firebird-sql/
A very good article about Firebird, thanks for bringing my attention to this project, I will start looking into it and try to include in my projects; it is amazing how projects such as this one are so underestimated.
Even though my last name is portuguese, I don’t speak portuguese, and I found some other articles (grails for Java developers), that I understand only a little (my native language is Spanish).
Obrigado
For all the people who wants to know Firebird better, I advice to check the paper “Get to know Firebird in 2 minutes”, available in several languages at http://www.firebirdnews.org/?page_id=165
Sorry for so many dups… the comment engine was giving “failure” when posting, but seems that the posts went trough. Moderator please remove two dupes above.
It’s not GPL compatible, since uses, as far as I recall, IPL license. Don’t know if postgresql uses a modified-GPL-compatible BSG license, hope so
Using FirebirdSQL, can you write Stored Procs in a variety of languages including C, Perl and Java?
I can with PostgreSQL.
Now is possible to write stored procs in C++ , java and i think other languages can be integrated like javascript (v8) , perl or python
Here is the article in Portuguese with the new feature : external engines
http://www.firebirdnews.org/?p=3889
also the main project page
http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=devel&sub=plugins&id=external_java
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I’ve been using successfully Firebird SQL since long ago in several projects. I suits perfect for Small Business Software but I think the project overall needs a better documentation sometimes it’s very difficult figure out how to do the things. Also a big regret are the internal functions, it has a very limited set of them and you can’t define new ones, as functions, because function declaration is reserved for Native functions ( SO or DLL ). You have to declare them as Store procedures.
Maybe I’m wrong and there are a lot of internal functions but as Documentation SUCKS!!! I have no way to know it.
You missed the main reason firebird can’t catch up. Where the hell can I find a shared hosting with firebird installed? As a web developer, I first go to a shared hosting, and learn some coding. Then, when I want to run something on a dedicated server, I’ll just go with what I know, that is mysql. Add up to this, the fact that you don’t have firebird support on most open source PHP project (PHPBB, MediaWIKI), and most closed source PHP projects (vBulletin), django (not built in, anyway) and for all I know on rails, that leave you with, developers don’t get to use it that much. The way I see it, that’s the main reason that firebird does not catchup.
In Brazil, we have several host providers offering Firebird. Just google and you will find a lot of them.
Does anyone still use a shared hosting (in the classic sense) for any serious project these days? With Virtual Private Servers and (for larger projects) cloud computing solutions such as Amazon EC3 being so affordable, and giving you full control as to what to use and install, why would you?
Nobody mention that firebird has support for roles. As far as i know Mysql has not implemented it and for me this is a plus on any rdbms.
Being able to create a security policy based on roles is a fast solution to control access to your data in a simple and practical way on a single spot. Postgres support it too…
(sorry for my gramma, my main language is spanish, not english)
Hi, good post. I have been pondering this topic,so thanks for sharing. I will definitely be subscribing to your posts.
The question may need a more precise field target : A lot of database developers are Firebird users : they do ERP/SCM/MRP/(a lot of other)… software. May be the question may be something like : “Why so few WEB developers are using Firebird SQL?”.
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Preamble: I and my company use FB since years with little issues and look forward for its continued success.
Said that, let me blunt about Firebird issues that prevent it from getting famous:
– Bad PR, awful 1990 newbie hobbyst style website with “CANCELLED” camping on it. No, no one cares that they are busy with the software, they are not busier than other open source project programmers who understood how the first impression is 70% of a deal.
If I were a CEO skimming on the WEB site, I’d not even give it a second look, as it does not give me the confidence to be a quality polished product, if the site is so bad.
– Missing processor features (that will come in 2.5).
– CRAPPY and ugly support off the famous popularity enablers, aka PHP and co. I was screaming murder because of the ancient IB interface causing all sort of obscure socket access errors on a WAFP (WAMP minus MySQL + Firebird). And no, going ODBC is not accepted any more.
– This and the non standard licensing make host companies afraid to invest in it.
– MySQL is fast for mostly read only queries web sites (the majority), with established, free, web tools you ALWAYS find pre-installed on any decent site.
– Postgress (I even used Informix, a distant cousin) I love it a lot, I compiled + installed it on the weirdest, eldest, crappiest dialects of any possible OS and it works, period.
So Firebird starts somewhat behind already and it does very little to appeal to potential new users. When they see a decrepit rusty 1980 Honda they don’t even open the engine cover where the Firebird developers put a Ferrari engine. So it gets wasted.
We have used Firebird in internal company project since year 2002. The main company operation software uses it.
Currently we have more than 100 databases installed in more than 90 offices in different cities in our country. All databases replicate with central replication database in real time. Total new records generated in central database is more than 120,000 per day.
Central replication database size is between 4GB and 5GB. It contains 2 months of operational data. We have archive database with 4 year of data in it. It’s size is 70GB. We use Firebird database via Delphi, PHP and Java programing languages.
Firebird does great job for us.
p.p.
To Dario Fumagalli
Main Firebird site is http://www.ibphoenix.com
It contains all versions of Firebird installers and lot of documentation. It’s industrial grade site.
I have used Firebird in my previous work at Internet store Gigant.pl (www.gigant.pl) since 2004. It’s a great RDBMS, but rather unpopular in the Poland. I know only one polish company which uses Firebird in their products except Gigant.pl. It is LeftHand – uses Firebird for desktop financial applications. Now I use PostgreSQL in my current work (internet booking systems for hotels and tour operators). This RDBMS is very good also. I used MySQL sometimes but I prefer two previous. MySQL procedural SQL syntax is horrible. PostgreSQL is more complex than Firebird, but I use only a small piece of its functionality for everyday work, so I think that Firebird could be used instead of it. Nobody knows Firebird in my new work, even our administrator. Everybody knows PostgreSQL and MySQL, but when somebody talk something about Firebird – WTF, what is this shit, etc… :-) Then I have to explain what is this in comparision to PostgreSQL and MySQL.
Ren in FL #33 asked about external procedures in C or Java. Yes, Firebird allows using external compiled functions as UDFs (User Defined Functions) in any language via binary libraries (dll, so). I wrote quite many UDFs in C/C++ (in MinGW, Visual C++ 6.0 and C++ Builder 6.0).
Little examples are here:
– http://www.uml.com.pl
– http://www.hakin9.org
you have very nice udf articles , maybe is worth an refresh with the new tools visual studio and maybe translated
Anyway i liked the cpuid asm hack :)
In my opinion is worth an mention in firebirdnews.org :)
Thanks. :-) Maybe when I find some free time I will update and translate them.
We have been using Interbase – now Firebird since the early 1990’s starting with the Release of Delphi 1. We now have one major application running with more than 250 database over many clients. Yes, documentation is poor, product is really good and very suitable for small / medium clients where there is no IT resource. Our application has backup / restore and upgrade database (for running in SQL / stored procedures) all on the File drop down menu. Databases vary from 2 Gb down to 40 Mb.
Use Database Workbench (www.upscene.com) as a very comprehensive DB tool supporting Firebird, Oracle, SQL Server ++++ depending on the add on modules you purchase. We have thousands of stored procedures some longer than 2000 lines of code all debugged with this tool.
We also built a totally automatic upgrade tool that will take a Firebird database of any version (our version ) to our latest version using two hand maintained DDL scripts, the other scripts are generated automatically from the master database. This tool allows us to load up a number of databases and walk away. Small 30 mb databases take 5+ mins, 2 Gb takes around 20+ mins depending on the machine.
We would not even comtemplate using anything else
hi there, i want to know, how do one create USERS via SQL …
I know in oracle, you can write SQL to create, drop and modify users.
In FB, there are only front end clients … but can I open a SQL session, and create users by using basic SQL commands …
please help.
I think the biggest problem that Firebird has is the documentation.
When I need to look up something (e.g. information on a function or SQL syntax), I first have to go through the old IB documents. If it’s not in there I need to go through the release notes for 1.5, if it’s not there I need to go through the release notes for 2.0, if it’s not in there I need to go through the release notes for 2.1….
Not very efficient :(
You may read Language Reference Update that covers all changes from IB 6.0 to Firebird 2.1.
Just visit official http://www.firebirdsql.org site, Documentation section.
Poor documentation is a real killer for Firebird. We were looking at alternative dbs to MySQL when Firebird was recommended by a developer who had used it before. But when we looked at it, the only ‘documentation’ were old Interbase manuals with the caveat “hey, it’s not *that* different.” Programmers and managers alike grew cold, and who could blame them?
What are the tools that popularized the mysql / postgres? PHP and with it, thousands of other free tools. And the firebird? Delphi?
Mysql came to a world totally different from firebird, web.
And the vast majority who develops pra web, do not use firebird.
Sorry, but in my opinion, nothing to do compare the popularity of the mysql / postgres with the firebird.
Totally agree with you. Great point!
Not a point. There are lot of tools for InterBase and Firebird. And some of these tools makes at least MS SQL users envy.
And, Firebird have biggest set of different drivers for any development tool. I can bet that you will not find that drivers number for any other RDBMS. I counted that about 7-8 years ago, and there were about 35-40 ODBC, OLE DB, Delphi, VS and other drivers, including ever exotic development systems.
One year of discussion – nice to read. The web site remained unchanged, the web community still uses LAMP, the state of the documentation ist still poor, FB 2.5 was announced for 2009 and we are still waiting for it and for it’s SMP support.
What are the ‘lessons learned’ by this discussion ? I can not see any.
By the way : we use FB in a lot of projects for airlines and other customers. So we ARE interested in a strong, good and well known FB.
My suggestion : MySQL is successful due to it’s marriage with PHP in LAMP, FB had a likewise relationship to Delphi. But this is weaking due to the declining importance of Delphi. So why not install another relationship, let’s say to .Net / VS Studio / C# Express ? Place FB on the market as the open source alternative to MSSQL for the whole MS community! Whatever the community may do : DO marketing or the market will still ignore FB – it’s a shame !
Volker (Bremerhaven, Germany)
Majority of Firebird users are also Delphi/Interbase programmers. The lack of reference materials on its use is one of the biggest setback for non-interbase/Delphi programmers. The Firebird Book written by Helen Borrie is the only available book that I have on Firebird, I hope more will be written and published soon.
I find that this equation holds true in all aspects related to software development.
(More Books & documentation = More users)
I agree with this equation too. Great point!