First Looks at MySQL Workbench
October 24, 2005
MySQL Workbench had a first alpha released on September 12th late in the night. Currently they are on version 1.0.2 alpha, of that the previous versions being 1.0a and 1.0.1a. They are working on 1.0.3 which hopefully works out some bad bugs that basically make the program almost a complete disaster in this early stage. But it has been quite a bit of time since they released any other alpha.
The application has some pretty cool features such as:
- Scripting Support
- Command Console
- Mutliple View Support
- Reverse Engineering
Expect many more features to be loaded into this program as it starts to near a beta stage. The design of the program in itself is pleasing to look at. It generates a nice xml file that it saves itself as, allows for you to create plugins (not yet implemented) and many other task saving items for developers or dba’s. This tool will help with MySQL’s offerings to Developers and Database Administrators in their graphical applications (MySQL Migration Toolkit, MySQL Administrator and MySQL Query Browser).
It would be nice to have a good ER modeler that you do not need to pay for and it’s architecture supports plugins and does not cost anything! Most of the software packages out there do not do enough for me to even want to pay $100-$2000 dollars for a single feature that is in another program. Maybe $25-50 is reasonable for the amount of time I actually use these programs. For now it is simply the bar napkin or dbdesigner which likes to crash.
Molior - An Application Framework
October 24, 2005
Molior – An application framework!
Well it has been a while since I posted an update on what was going on here.
Currently I am working on an application framework (open source) called Molior.
The reason for choosing Molior is because the meaning of the word is “to build” in Latin. This application framework is going to basically have 3 pieces. A configuration manager, application manager and a extension manager. The breakdown of that is quite simple. I will explain how all of these pieces work together a little later. The first version is going to only be XML storage unless someone decides to port it before I get out of the early alpha version.
I have basically been focusing this to people that just simply want to manage there applications without having to change there methods of coding. Allowing much more re-usability and stability.
Configuration Manager
What this is being aimed to do is simply add a configuration manager to handle almost all of the configuration; that integrates nicely with the applications and extension pieces.
For the most part you are able to create a simple page to interface the variables to already created applications to make them work in an application. A quick example of this would work as the following:
< ?php
$variable = $_CFG->myapp->variable;
//now proceed to include the main application.
require_once(dirname(__FILE__).’/real_index.php’);
?>
Extension Manager
The extension manager works by including these before any type of operation is started with processing information and starting an application. This way you could install something like ADOdb as an extension and have it included in the beginning of the application, same with using session management.
Application Manager
What I would call an application is anything that the user gets to see. So your web page would therefore be considered an application; of which, it probably is if you are looking at something like this.
End Notes
If anyone has more ideas or would like to be involved in some of the coding there is many ways to help currently. I am still in the planning and early coding stages trying to find the best method of getting this all together. It is such a simple concept and simple to code but I might have over thought the ways to implement it. Currently I am thinking PHP 5 and a possible backport to PHP 4. And looking at different types of storage formats for an initial install such as an INI file, an XML file and a PHP file.
Building a user interface for the configuration manager is going to be the hardest part. There is so much type of data that people might want to enter and that is where it can get a bit complicated! Look for some more soon!
