Comments on: Squeak Smalltalk and Databases

By: Ramon Leon

Ramon Leon — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:46:07 +0000

I couldn’t tell you, I don’t really use it with Smalltalk. MySql is a perfectly good database for many purposes, don’t let me dissuade you from using it. I just feel PostgreSQL is much better written from the ground up.

By: Leon Smith

Leon Smith — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:08:19 +0000

Are there any decent tutorials about using MySQL with Squeak ? I’ve looked at everything Goggle comes up with. I’m using the latest Squeak on the latest Ubuntu with the latest MySQL and have upgraded to the latest MySQL driver and Cryptography, but cannot connect using the simplest example. I keep getting timeout errors.

I stongly disagree that MySQL “is not much better than Access” or that it is not an Enterprise DB. So I’d like to give it a shot with Squeak. Am I missing something obvious ?

By: Ramon Leon

Ramon Leon — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:11:06 +0000

I was until recently, if you want a relational db, GLORP and PostgreSQL are the way to go for sure. I’m just finding that the projects I tend to work on are small private applications that don’t justify the complexity introduced by mapping, so I prefer simpler solutions like object db’s or image persistence, or just using serialization to disk. When you’re just replacing word and excel files for a small group of users, the bar isn’t that high, you don’t need ACID level persistence or industrial strength db’s.

By: Esteban A. Maringolo

Esteban A. Maringolo — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:53:57 +0000

Are you still using Squeak’s GLORP against a local PostgreSQL Server?
What is your experience summary/conclusion?

Best regards.

By: christian schorn » Blog Archive » Links 11

christian schorn » Blog Archive » Links 11 — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:22:25 +0000

[...] Squeak Smalltalk and Databases [...]

By: Ruby demo in Seaside: the sequel « Tekkie

Ruby demo in Seaside: the sequel « Tekkie — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 07:01:06 +0000

[...] First he talks about selecting a database. He chooses PostgreSQL, and talks about his experience in setting it up. He chooses Glorp for object-relational mapping (ORM).� Next, he shows how to take his Build-a-blog-in-15-minutes example� and instead of using an OrderedCollection to store posts and comments, as was shown in the first demo,� he shows how to set up Glorp to interface the blog to tables in PostgreSQL. He also compares/contrasts Glorp with Ruby on Rails’s ActiveRecord framework. Very interesting reading.� No screencast this time, but it looks like he posted� the necessary� code. [...]

By: Bernard Notarianni

Bernard Notarianni — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 13:22:06 +0000

Agree with Ramon. If your are in a context where your model is designed by somebody else, and that person accept everything from the client before asking you to do it, Seaside/PostresSQL cannot do much for you, and Java/Oracle neither actually ;-)

By: Ramon Leon

Ramon Leon — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 23:25:10 +0000

Or find better work.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 12:32:53 +0000

Yeah, if your model is somewhat sane and your database is not that big you can do this.

But if your model is designed by a manager for a customer who wants everything and your database is 2 GB then you have to hand tune your queries (more than 200 LOC queries).

By: Ramon Leon

Ramon Leon — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 22:24:16 +0000

Thanks Alan, glad you like the site, send all those Java colleagues over here as well, show em a real web framework.

By: #doesNotUnderstand: » Blog Archive » Squeak et bases de données

#doesNotUnderstand: » Blog Archive » Squeak et bases de données — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 20:43:35 +0000

[...] Ramon Leon fait le point sur l’état du support des bases de données avec Squeak. Deux approches sont possibles : les bases de données objets (SGBDO), les bases de données relationnelles (SGBR). Ils passent en revue trois outils de type SGBDO : Magma, Omnibase et GOODS. Même si ce sont des outils intéressants, aucun n’est satisfaisant � ces yeux pour un projet professionnel. Ce sont de plus des outils supportés par un seul dévelopeur, ce qui poser des problèmes de perennité. [...]

By: Alan Capewell

Alan Capewell — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 20:03:27 +0000

Ramon,

slightly off topic but just wanted to let you know how useful your site is. I’m an old Smalltalk hack been doing Java for 10 years though. 2 weeks ago I stumbled across seaside and was blown away! This stuff is just awesome and your site is the one place I keep returning to for practical insights.

I also downloaded your image. It looks very professional and for the first time I’m not embarassed to demo squeak to my Java colleagues!

By: Ramon Leon

Ramon Leon — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 20:09:39 +0000

Ah, gotcha, you want a sql development environment, I just want a decent admin tool. I’ll let GLORP or ROE write the SQL for me, I’ll stick to Smalltalk for my development environment. I keep the real programming, out of the database and in the application layer where I feel it belongs, so I don’t do a lot of hairy SQL development. Databases are just persistence for me.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:38:42 +0000

It doesn’t even know SQL. It can just highlight keywords. No pretty printing, no folding, no indenting, nothing. Don’t even think about tab completion. Error reporting is just a joke. And it core dumps from time to time. Opening a new window for a query is annoying.

It doesn’t give out any sort of helpful feedback. It can not tell you why stuff is slow and what you can do against it. Why it does a nested loop on a join although you have an index on the attributes and so on. Yes you can run ANALYZE but mapping that back to your query is like doing source mapping (mapping bytecode to source code).

The list goes on. At least the 1.4 version can now save passwords. The 1.2 had a checkbox to save them but didn’t actually save it. And they had the habit of fucking up your X11 session.

By: Ramon Leon

Ramon Leon — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 16:55:22 +0000

No, I’m just getting to know PostgreSQL myself, so far, pgAdmin III seems OK with me, what is it you don’t like?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 16:03:14 +0000

Have you found any good PostgreS tools?
I’m not really happy with pgAdmin III.

By: Ramon Leon

Ramon Leon — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 15:19:28 +0000

I’ve felt this way for a while, just now getting around to writing about it though, due to my recent need for GLORP. I’m curious how your ROE experience is going, that’s also on my to do list, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

By: Brian Brown

Brian Brown — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 08:19:03 +0000

I came to a similar conclusion quite a while ago, but have been using ROE instead of glorp for my data access. I’ll be interested to see how things go for you in this!