[plt-scheme] About Firebird/Interbase

Noel,
 
Is your Firebird interface code compatible with SchemeQL?  I.e., if I were to use Firebird and your driver, could I just make use of SchemeQL on top of it?
 
-Brent

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: Noel Welsh [mailto:noelwelsh at yahoo.com] 
	Sent: Wed 7/17/2002 8:55 AM 
	To: Brent Fulgham; plt-scheme 
	Cc: 
	Subject: RE: [plt-scheme] About Firebird/Interbase
	
	

	Hi Brent,
	
	Yes, it is the open source version of Interbase.
	Borland opened Interbase then pulled it back a while
	later but not before a group of hackers (including the
	original IB devs) had grabbed the source.
	
	I'm using it for an internal timesheet project.  I
	started using Scheme and decided I needed a DB.  One
	of the guys here was keen to see how IB performed.  So
	I downloaded it and decided to create a driver.
	(Could have used ODBC but I was a bit leery about the
	setup involved)
	
	I'm still an IB rookie but here is my take on:
	
	- It's a real (ACID) DB so it already has one up on
	MySQL ;-)
	- It has a lot of 'high-performance' features:
	  - multi-version concurrency
	  - triggers
	  - views
	  - procedural query language (quite horrid, as per db
	norms)
	  - clustering (big plus)
	  - replication
	- It runs on everything, including Windows
	- The SuperServer has a threaded model (cf Postgres'
	forking model)
	- Its well documented
	- Its fast and easy to setup
	- Maintenance seems to be minimal
	- It is free software
	
	Don't think it has any object-relational features.
	Nothing particularly supports Scheme but the C API is
	easy enough to wrap.
	
	It feels like a cleaner version of PostgrsQL (though I
	don't have any recent experience with PostgreSQL).
	
	I'm quite interested in doing a MySQL driver so I can
	play around on SourceForge.  If that gets done we'd
	have the three main free DBs covered by PLT Scheme.
	
	HTH,
	Noel
	
	PS: If you're making a commercial decision based on
	this response I can provide more info when I have the
	timesheets up and running.  Also the docs are online.
	
	--- Brent Fulgham <brent.fulgham at xpsystems.com> wrote:
	> This is an off-topic question, but how does this
	> database compare to PostgreSQL or MySQL?
	>
	> I believe Firebird is based on the old Interbase
	> product from Borland/Imprise, correct?  I'm not
	> familiar with its particulars, but you obviously
	> like something about it enough to write an interface
	> for it!
	>
	> Does it support any object database features (like
	> PostgreSQL) or provide any particularly
	> scheme-friendly
	> behavior?
	>
	> Thanks,
	>
	> -Brent
	
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