Category: Worth Reading
Content not direct related to FB, but interesting reading.
Libgda 4.2.13 released with Firebird support (work is in progress)
Libgda is a (relatively small) database access library: it is a
wrapper like ODBC but with more features to access several database
engines * features a meta data extractor (to know all about database
objects in a common way) comes with an SQL console application
Work is in progress for Firebird (Check the git tree). There is also a
special feature which allows one to connect to a database hidden
behing a web server (through specific PHP scripts) * LGPL licensed for
the libraries and GPL licensed for the tools.
See http://www.gnome-db.org for more information.

ps: I like the Gda Browser Relation Diagram tool
Searching for Firebird programmer
I got this in my email box, maybe some of you would be interested:
Dear Carlos,I came across your name asking developers to send details of large companies who use firebird databases. I am actually an end-user who has the open mind to want a firebird database but cannot find anyone who does this programming. I am based in the UK and am told to ‘steer away’ from firebird as it is not proven, etc. etc.It really is quite disappointing and seems that there are many others like myself who would like to have an alternative but cannot find a developer. So I am the horse looking for water to drink – but there is no water…not like you describe leading the client to the water but not getting them to drink.Any suggestions?JT <tse.tse@ntlworld.com>
Jaybird 2.2 beta hopefully will be released this weekend with jdbc 3.0 and open/libre office support
News via Mark Rotteveel on twitter
Finishing touches to Jaybird 2.2 beta releasenotes, hopefully I will be able to finally release it this weekend
ps:
Jaybird 2.2 is the next Firebird jdbc driver release with many fixes which will include improved support of the JTA specification (XADataSource and XAResource interfaces). Additionally it already has improved support for OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice Base component, which deviates in some places from the JDBC 3.0 specification.
RAD Studio survey
There is a new RAD Studio (Delphi,etc) survey on-line, from Embarcadero. Firebird is mentioned so, go ahead and participate if you use Delphi, CBuilder, etc.
Shorter Firebird queries from Entity Framework
From Jiří Činčura blog :
Yesterday I released ADO.NET provider for Firebird version 2.7.5 and there’s one feature I’d like to blog about. As you might know Firebird has a pretty old limitation on “size” of query. It’s both the string itself, but also the column datatypes and parameters used. No need to dive to details, because I’ll only talk about the first item.
Official Firebird driver FDB release 0.7.2 is out with Support for Python 3 and Distributed Transactions
FDB release 0.7.2 is out:
http://pypi.python.org/pypi/fdb/0.7.2
Highlights for this release:
– Python 3 Support (thanks to Philippe Makowski)
– Support for Distributed Transactions
– Support for NBACKUP Service
– Support for Trace Service
And as always, some bugs fixed.
Main target for next version: support for Firebird Events.
Note: I’m really glad that Philippe joined the FDB team, especially to look after Python 3 support (but not only that). Thanks!
You can also read the announcement on firebird-python list
How to install Firebird 3
IBSurgeon just published an article about How to install Firebird 3.0 (snapshot build) on Windows. There are some differences compared to previous Firebird versions, so everyone should read this.
Firebird vs Windows: file-system caching issue
This article, from Dmitry Yemanov, is a must read for everyone using Firebird on more recent Windows versions, specially Windows 2008. As some people already experienced, it seems that the Windows Cache Manager intelligence in those versions of Windows are not smart enough, and can produce very bad performance for database access in some circumstances.
Firebird roadmap has been updated
From Dmitry Yemanov:
The project roadmap has been updated a bit. The change is to boost the v2.1.5 and v2.5.2 releases at the cost of slightly delaying the v3.0 Alpha release.Firebird 2.1.4 was released exactly one year ago, so now it’s a promised time for v2.1.5. It has 53 bugs fixed and no critical issues remaining unresolved. Firebird 2.5.1 was released more than 5 months ago and the expected release date for v2.5.2 is approaching the next month. It has 45 issues resolved up-to-date and a few more are in the pipeline. So it makes a lot of sense to release them sooner rather than later.
The v3.0 Alpha release will be going through the preparation stage while all three release candidates (v2.0.7, v2.1.5, v2.5.2) are being field tested, so it’s likely to appear shortly after the aforementioned releases, in the second quarter.
Thanks for your understanding.
