Daily Archives: December 26, 2007

Links for keeping an eye on database providers’ Entity Framework status

Data Access

I’ve been snooping around the web and found links for many of the db vendors (and 3rd party vendors) to try to watch their own news about what they are doing for Entity Framework.

Here’s Dave Sceppa’s list of companies working on EF providers and interleaved with his list are my best stabs at a blog or page on their website to watch:

Providers Targeting Publicly Available Versions Within Three Months of RTM

·         Core Lab – Providing connectivity to Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite databases

Core Lab does not seem to have a blog but here is their News page

·         IBM – Providing connectivity to both IBM DB2 data server and Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) databases

Took some digging, but here’s the guy responsible for letting non-IBM developers use IBM’s databases: Grant Hutchinson’s blog.

·         MySQL AB – Providing connectivity to MySQL databases

MySQL is opensource. The best resource I think to watch is Planet MySQL, which is an aggregated feed of various MySQL bloggers.

·         Npgsql – Providing connectivity to PostgreSQL database versions 7.3+ and 8.x

Npgsql stands for .NET Provider for PostgreSQL. Opensource. Here’s the project page for the .NET projects. Also, they were very excited about their Entity Framework provider getting in the news!

·         OpenLink Software – Providing connectivity to Oracle, Informix, Ingres, Sybase, MySQL, PostgreSQL, DB2, Progress and Microsoft SQL Server databases, and any data source accessible via OpenLink ODBC or JDBC bridge drivers

OpenLink doesn’t seem to have a blog either. Here is their launch page for info on ADO.NET providers that they write.

·         Phoenix Software International – Providing connectivity to SQLite databases

hmmmm??? I found Phoenix Software International, but nothing seemingly related here…

·         Sybase – Providing connectivity to SQL Anywhere databases

Here’s the SQLAnywhere launch page

·         VistaDB Software – Providing connectivity to VistaDB databases

VistaDB blog

* – The providers in the list above are also working towards publicly available versions of their providers to work with Beta 3 of the Entity Framework.

Providers Targeting Publicly Available Versions in 2008

·         DataDirect Technologies – Providing connectivity to multiple data stores including Oracle, Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server and DB2 via DataDirect Connect® for ADO.NET

None other than Jonathan Bruce! 🙂

·         Firebird – Providing connectivity to Firebird databases

Firebird is open source. HEre is the Firebird Community News website.

And, missing from Dave’s list is Oracle.

I’m watching Christopher Shay’s blog for any news.

Telligent has really nailed it with Graffiti

Blogging

Yes, you are reading this on a dasBlog site and I love dasBlog, but I spent the Christmas holiday playing with the public beta of Graffiti and I really do think they have nailed it for a lightweight CMS/blogging system.

Out of the box, it is really simple to use, but don’t let it’s simplicity fool you. It is so customizable on two levels. For any end user, the widgets are fabulous and take no braincells to use. For those adept in CSS and HTML, the themes can be customized very deeply. The macros expose gobs of functionality and the views are really easy to leverage. I was able to give the site my own look by starting with one of the available themes, then replacing most of the image files that are used in the theme.

I believe that in using Graffiti, I’m getting a really good taste of either MVP or MVC here.

Also, the fact that you can just plop in an Access database (default) or other database without having to set up SQL Server if you don’t want to is a big advantage. This closes the gap between one of the important features of dasBlog – all of the content is stored in files so there’s no need to deal with SQL Server – and something like Community Server which requires a database. However, my blog is now made of up over 1300 separate xml files. This definitely makes me nervous. In fact, I looked at CS first, but was stopped by the fact that you have to host the database independently. I didn’t see a way to just add the tables and other elements into my existing hosted database.

I’ve been building something that is not even going to be used as a blog, but a mini-site where I can aggregate some particular blog posts and other content.

One tip regarding the Access database I can share is this. If you want to test Graffiti out locally and you are using Vista, there are a show-stopper issues with permissions to MDB files in IIS7. I spent hours trying to get around it and finally gave up. I was able to open and run it in VS2008 using the web development server instead. When I FTPd everything to my webhost (which means IIS6) there were no problems at all using the Access file. I ended up doing 98% of my customization on the hosted site anyway.