3 comments

  • rf153 minutes ago
    I don&#x27;t get it. You had to face the problem of a <i>type</i> in a network protocol that had no direct Java equivalent, and decided, for something so low level and performance critical, to create a new instantiable Class? With the expressed intent to not use it for mathematical operations?<p>So instead of suffering the penalties of<p>bytes -&gt; BigDecimal (with validation of course)<p>you thought it&#x27;s better to add more construction steps in the form of<p>bytes -&gt; Decimal32 (validation included) -&gt; Big Decimal?<p>Do you know what kind of performance overhead this entails for your JDBC driver?
  • homebrewer4 hours ago
    I&#x27;d also like to draw attention to the parent project Firebird. For some reason (probably its ties to Borland&#x2F;Delphi?) it never became widely popular, even though it combines SQLite&#x27;s ease of use with a proper fully featured database engine.<p>For example, it supports proper ALTER TABLE which doesn&#x27;t force you to recreate tables and copy data around when you go beyond the most trivial use cases.<p>This is pretty much the only discussion I&#x27;ve found on this site:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=22155260">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=22155260</a>
    • exabrial2 hours ago
      Just curious, because I don’t know, Postegres is all the rage, MySql is the og, where does Firebird carve its niche?
      • whartung9 minutes ago
        My favorite anecdote relating to Firebird&#x2F;Interbase (its original name) is that it is supposed to be renowned for its durability (i.e. resistance to corruption) and fast start times.<p>Because of this, they used it within the internal systems of the M-1 Abrahms tank.<p>Apparently when the main gun is fired, it gives off such a powerful energy impulse, that there is (at least was) a tendency for it to crash the internal systems.<p>So, they adopted Interbase because of its ability to work well in an environment where hard computer crashes are more a norm than an outlier.
      • homebrewer58 minutes ago
        These days, feature-wise, it&#x27;s probably somewhere in the middle. It had support for things like window functions long before they became available in MySQL and friends.<p>What it gives you over both is single-file databases which are easy to share, and in-process embedded mode, just like SQLite.<p>Unlike SQLite, it doesn&#x27;t only support embedded mode, but can also be turned into a &quot;server&quot; DBMS that supports remote access from multiple clients (like MySQL&#x2F;PostgreSQL). Hundreds of concurrent connections work fine from what I&#x27;ve seen. This can be changed in either direction at your discretion, the database file remains the same.
      • re-thc16 minutes ago
        &gt; Postegres is all the rage, MySql is the og<p>From &quot;influencers&quot; i.e. YouTubers?<p>OG real world was Oracle and SQL Server.
    • throw774882 hours ago
      [dead]
  • sakesun4 hours ago
    Nice to see Firebird still being actively developed.