[MonoDevelop] DeveelDB: call for testers (preparing stable release)

[Antonello Provenzano]

Hi all folks,

In past months some of you heard me speaking about the project
DeveelDB, announcing beta releases (we're currently at 0.9.8b) and
asking for development support. Many things have changed, thanks to
the support of some interested, skilled and motivated supporters (one
upon all, Enzo Lombardi, who helped me writing the new math engine,
testing new features, etc.).

The project reached some important milestones, resulting (during
benchmark tests not conducted by me, s demonstration of impartiality)
the fastest database system for .NET (in comparison with SQLite C#,
Effiproz, SQLExpress and VistaDB), the most solid and with an open
architecture, giving all the possibility to expand it to accomplish
several tasks (eg. full-text search, caching, GIS computations, TCP/IP
server exposure, etc.).

Another key turning point has been also the re-licensing of the
project, from the original GPLv3 to the Apache License 2.0: after
intensive discussions with Miguel [de Icaza] I realized this was the
best solution to boost its adoption among the community, removing some
of the legal constraints remaining.

After a small time of stop (something more than 2 months actually,
following personal problems), I restarted actively maintaining
DeveelDB, by providing a new testing approach to increase the code
coverage and potentially prepare the first stable release.
Because of this reason, I'm coming to you asking for a technical
support, by providing us with test cases that can be used to increase
the code coverage of DeveelDB.

For those who still don't know DeveelDB, let me introduce it to you as
a SQL-compliant database management system: by saying this I don't
want to mean that it just works by invocation of SQL text statements,
but also provides a Direct Access API. This mechanism allows users to
bypass the SQL parser, invoking functions directly within your .NET
code (eg. instead of issuing a statement "CREATE TABLE ...", it is
possible to call the method 'CreateTable' exposed by DirectAccess
class, that is also what the library does once it parses the text
statement in the previous case).
In either cases, DeveelDB keeps the SQL model as reference for the
data modeling (tables, columns, rows, constraints, triggers, etc.).

This introduction was necessary to explain the different testing
approaches needed to be followed, if you will decide to help us:
- one for the traditional SQL statement execution (eg. writing
SQL-92/99 statements to be parsed and executed)
- another one for the Direct Access API

You can have a brief idea of the current state of the project by
inspecting the SVN repository at the following address:

http://code.google.com/p/deveeldb/source/browse/

If you wish to collaborate with us, please email at this address
(antonello at deveel.com) or the project's address, db at deveel.com: we
will discuss better about it there!


I wish to thank you all for the kind interest and Mono for the
hospitality in letting me post this advice.

Cheers!
Antonello