[CLUE-Tech] Database Design Tool for Linux?

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 01-17 20:23, Jeffery Cann wrote:
> On Thursday 17 January 2002 04:55 pm, Jed S. Baer wrote:
> > As I begin to cogitate upon a little educational exercise here at home, a
> > PHP/PostgreSQL sandbox, I'm discovering that I feel almost stuck without a
> > graphical database design tool. 
> 
> Ouch!
> 
> > Granted, I can whip out a pencil and a
> > flowcharting template (yes, I own a couple of those, and I used to use
> > them), or snag a cheap white board. But, I'm struck with the lack of such
> > a tool for linux. Yes, there's GNU/Dia, but it isn't really up to the
> > task. It seems pretty clunky to me, and its entity shapeset is severly
> > limited. 
> 
> I have used Dia successfully for database (entity) design.  It will not work 
> if you are looking for a CASE tool.
> 
> > So have I missed something?
> 
> I haven't seen anything as mature as Windoze counterparts.  On the other 
> hand, the CASE tools I have used on Windoze pretty much sucked until about 
> two years ago.  Some (like Oracle's) _still_ suck.

It doesn't really provide CASE per se, but PowerDesigner (formerly
S-Designor) wasn't that bad, even five or six years ago, IMHO. And except
for the repository, I never really thought Oracle Designer was really so
bad.

It's funny this topic came up, because I've long noted the lack of what I
consider a decent modeller that is low cost or free for Linux (not to
mention the lack of a low cost solution for Windoze - at last check, I think
PowerDesigner was $3000, and I personally don't care for Visio.). When I was
laid off, I thought I might take a crack at trying to start building a
rudimentary one in Java. I was starting to get a project defined and
compiled (JBuilder on W2K), then my Windows box died (replaced with FreeBSD,
take that, Bill! :)), and that took a lot of wind out of my sails. Database
access in Java is very simple, and Swing is getting better all the time (1.4
is supporting scrollwheels now) so it makes for a good choice for such a
tool. I was going to focus on Postgres first, and start branching out from
there. 

In the simple case, generating the database from the model would not be hard
at all - the diffs would be well, interesting, but still doable, I think. I
think the hardest part in starting would be figuring out how to implement
the components of the model in Java/Swing, i.e., clicking on them, moving
them about, drawing the lines connecting them. Once that was done, the core
functions would require some thought (and lots of testing because of all the
various and sundry datatypes among different RDBMS's) and time, but I'm sure
I'd learn a lot about different databases. Now that I'm currently employed,
I'm not sure when I might get to it, though. :( But getting a paycheck is
always good...

Cheers,
-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at attbi.com Yahoo:seanleblancathome 
ICQ:138565743 MSN:seanleblancathome AIM:sleblancathome 
Linux, the way to get rid of boot viruses 
-MaDsen Wikholm