Firebird Relational Database 1.5 Final Out 445
firebirdy writes "The Firebird Project is pleased to announce that the v1.5 release of the Firebird database engine is now available for immediate download. The v1.5 release represents a major upgrade to the engine, which has been developed by an independent team of voluntary developers from the InterBase(tm) source code that was released by Borland under the InterBase Public License v.1.0 on 25 July 2000. Development on the Firebird 2 codebase began early in Firebird 1 development, with the porting of the Firebird 1 C code to C++ and the first major code-cleaning. Firebird 1.5 is the first release of the Firebird 2 codebase. Install packages are currently only available for Windows and Linux but other platforms should follow shortly." This product is not to be confused with newly renamed Firefox web browser, which was also called Firebird for some time.
Bleh (Score:4, Insightful)
Right (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Right (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bleh (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bleh (Score:3, Insightful)
Professionals would already know Interbase (Firebirds previous name). It's the main database technology behind Delphi, which is still the best selling bulk development tool after Microsoft's stuff. And the only major commercial development tool with a Linux version.
Re:Bleh (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a free database running those domains, but it ain't MySQL or Firebird.
Re:Bleh (Score:4, Informative)
Related to the naming issue: the mozilla people choosed a name that was already taken by another project, they changed their name now, and that's it...
Re:Bleh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mod this down as Firebait! Mindless MySql trash (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bleh (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bleh (Score:5, Informative)
Firebird has a few minor claims to fame.
What about distributed transactions? AFAIK, no other open source relational database supports them (neither PostgreSQL, nor MAXDB, nor MySQL). I do quite a bit of distributed object programming, so I can't do without distributed transactions, and Firebird's work well.
What about server-side event notification? AFAIK PostgreSQL is the only other open source relational database that supports them. Switching from a polling architecture to event notification can yield huge performance benefits.
What about nested transactions? Firebird 1.5 supports savepoints, which are a basic rendition of nested transactions. AFAIK, MAXDB is the only other open source relational database with nested transaction support (though MAXDB's are full-fledged nested transactions, not just savepoints).
This isn't just some Firebird-propaganda-bullet-list. I find all these features indispensable.
Why I know about Firebird (Score:4, Informative)
We used to deploy Interbase as part of a product at a company I worked at years back. We would install, start the system (which had multi-gigabyte databases at times), and then not look at it again for YEARS. Two years could go by without tuning, transaction log clearing, or anything else, for that matter. It doesn't have transaction logs (doesn't need them), and sweeps itself clear of most detritus automatically.
Backups could effortlessly be done on the fly. Full two-phase commit support. And when it comes to complex transactions, it's one of the best databases out there because of its generational architecture (something it shares with PostgreSQL).
There are a few rough edges on it, like the lack of a standard GUI administration tool. Java support was slow to evolve. The lack of care given by Borland hurt the product for a time. The Firebird people seem to have done a lot of hard work, and deserve praise.
And for the record, Firefox or whatever the hell it is calling itself this week is one of the stupidest excuses for a software package I've seen to date. It's Mozilla minus most of the features that make Moz useful and extensible. It doesn't run any faster than Moz in resident mode. It performs no useful function I am aware of. The adulation it receives utterly escapes me; it seems to be a prime example of building software for the past. The engineering effort would have been far better spent on Moz itself.
Re:Why I know about Firebird (Score:4, Interesting)
Note that in my comments about FirebirdSQL, I only mentioned the company. I haven't used the database and so I will acknowledge that it may very well be a great database, whereas it would appear that you clearly have not used Fx if you honestly think it's not extensible. And if it is the case that you haven't used it, you can hardly call it a poor excuse for a software package.
This is obviously going to get modded down as flamebait or trolling, as is always the case on Slashdot when a good debateable topic comes up.
Re:Why I know about Firebird (Score:3, Interesting)
Our databases would be less than a gig but any time it did a sweep it would take up one whole processor and go bye byes for an exteneded period of time. In fairness to Interbase, we were using the Borland Database Engine as well which was a cause for most of our database headaches but I would not recommend Interbase in a large production environment.
I thought the best thing about Interbase were the GUI admin tools (IBExpert in particular).
This project (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, has anyone used this database? Is it really of any note that v1.5 is out?
Re:This project (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand, I hated having to administer that hell-pit of a server so badly that I wrote a migration program [honeypot.net] to transfer entire databases from Firebird to PostgreSQL. I can't describe how happy I was to switch a fairly large online store [brownderby.com]'s backend to a modern platform.
Re:This project (Score:3, Insightful)
Heck, in my small MS centric world there isn't even a way to distribute Postgre with my application. The only good thing about the Postgre from my point of view is the BSD license and that's about it....
Re:This project (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This project (Score:5, Informative)
This RDBMS is a viable peer to PostgreSQL. It has many features that MySQL does not have.
Just the other day, there was a good article [linuxjournal.com] about this database.
Client caching (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Client caching (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This project (Score:4, Informative)
I guess Perl has a module for it as well...
Re:This project (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This project (Score:4, Funny)
Firebird for web sites (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Firebird for web sites (Score:4, Funny)
Much better than Internet Explorer.
Re:Firebird for web sites (Score:3, Informative)
Basically, the main difference is that Firebird is a fully transactional database server, whereas MySQL is not.
Rollback and commit.
Re:Firebird for web sites (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Firebird for web sites (Score:4, Insightful)
Firebird was extremely easy to set up and configure (= almost no configuration). So that couldn't have been easier.
But then there was the speed issue: At the time Firebird was not a speed daemon. The one thing that bugged me most, though, was that when connecting to the database -- even if you did so from a remote host -- you had to know the physical location of the database file on the server!
It's strange what turns you off, and this peculiarity annoyed me enough to start investigating other options instead. I'm now using Postgresql when I need the more advanced SQL features.
Re:Firebird for web sites (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Enlighten me... What is MySQL missing? (Score:4, Informative)
There's a lot of examples of what MySQL can't do, but I'll just give two. Let's say you want to do this:This SELECT gets all words used in an article, and looks them up in a dictionary. You can't do this in MySQL.
What you can do in the latest alpha versions is this:But this will only return one row, so it's not the same. Other DB systems will also let you create functions inside the database, which can be reused later.
Another thing you can't do with MySQL is set up DOMAINs (or constraints); with Postgres you can specify that a field in a table should be an integer, but only integers between (for instance) 1 and 1,000,000.
And it's a lot more. But admittedly most people won't be needing the advanced functions a lot, if at all, so if MySQL suits your need just use it. Databases are a little like other tools: You use the one that's best suited for the job.
Re:Firebird for web sites (Score:5, Informative)
I can say that it seemed to handle fine, the server never crashed, there was never a corruption etc - and this was for fairly large databases as well (million+ records etc)..
Firebird I'm sure improves even further on it, the only problem I had with it was it's horrid horrid gui interface(s).
Woohoo! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Woohoo! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Woohoo! (Score:2)
Look up! is it a browser, is it a OS? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Look up! is it a browser, is it a OS? (Score:5, Funny)
--Dan
Ooooh, THAT firebird (Score:3, Informative)
Of course now they'll be known as the folks that got the name "Firebird" when Firebird changed its name to Firefox. Oh yeah, and they make a database.
In other news (Score:4, Funny)
F------d Database Engine
More news to follow.
P.S. For any lawyers, etc. reading this, the above is an example of "parody", not subject to the definition of "slander" or "libel".
Re:In other news (Score:3, Funny)
Re:In other news (Score:2)
Re:In other news (Score:2)
Assembling static data (Score:5, Interesting)
Currently we use Oracle for this work, but in the past we tried switching to MySQL but found that it lacked some of the key features such as materialized views, nested sub-queries and a variety of Oracle SQL functions that we find useful. MySQL seemed to be geared towards maintaining a real-time database to support customer interaction, rather than as an environment for assembling static data sources.
Could Firebird be a viable open-source alternative, or are there others?
Re:Assembling static data (Score:2, Funny)
Granted, subselects save on network traffic (although it seems to me it can also be done a little more clunkily with TEMPORARY tables).
Don't see where you see this distinction between real-time and static data in MySQL, but until you're more specific about the host of Oracle features, I still won't know.
I, on the other hand, am still annoyed that Oracle doesn't allow taking a slice of a res
Re:Assembling static data (Score:4, Informative)
What are you talking about?
ANSI standard syntax for such joins was added two versions ago in Oracle. Personally, I hate the ANSI syntax.
What exactly does "taking a slice" of a result set mean? Oracle gives you half a dozen different ways to do this. The standard one is to use native dynamic sql to add arbitrary WHERE clause conditions at runtime. If that isn't enough, Oracle 9i provides a far greater capability: pipelined table functions allow arbitrary programmatic construction of a result set that can be used as a table in a FROM clause.
Re:Assembling static data (Score:3, Insightful)
I suspect the poster is talking about linear slicing at the row level; in PostgreSQL, for example, you can do select ... where ... limit 25 offset 50 to get rows 50-74 of a result set. MySQL has a similar syntax. Oracle supports a size limiting clause, but I don't remember if it has a way to specify the starting offset.
Re:Assembling static data (Score:5, Informative)
I think you'll find that materialized views, at least as far as doing refresh-on-commit and query rewriting, are a really advanced feature that only Oracle has. In many warehousing or decision support applications, they are a must have feature that makes the difference between project success and failure.
Assuming you aren't in such a high performance setting, you can often simulate a materialized view by simply populating a transformation table using stored procedures. In such settings, I think either Firebird or PostgreSQL would work fine, cost less, and avoid icky proprietary licence restrictions.
How do I use this thing? (Score:2)
Re:How do I use this thing? (Score:3, Informative)
What language? What platform?
Let's start with a nice Win32 Gui to administer the db: IBExpert [ibexpert.com]
OK, now the drivers: there are plenty of ODBC, OleDB, .NET and JDBC drivers available. I personally use IBProvider [ibprovider.com],
it's a OleDB driver. I have also used the open sourced
ODBC [ibphoenix.com]
driver with great success.
Only got one thing to say about Firebird: (Score:2)
Re:Only got one thing to say about Firebird: (Score:2)
Easy to install? I guess if you've installed it before. I found it amazingly complicated to install and never did get it working right. I ditched it for MySQL which was much simpler. I never need to screw around with the pg_hba.conf file (or whatever it is) to setup access permissions.
Re:Only got one thing to say about Firebird: (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Only got one thing to say about Firebird: (Score:3, Informative)
Configuration, what you seem to be talking about, is not rocket science either. Of course it is harder than configuring MySQL, because it does more. In the case of access permissions, PostgreSQL seper
Re:Only got one thing to say about Firebird: (Score:3, Informative)
1: The OO stuff as regards table inheritence is broken, and no one's in a hurry to fix it.
2: It's easy for me to install, for some people, not so much.
3: FirebirdSQL is just as free as PostgreSQL, using their own version of the Mozilla Public License.
The main things that PostgreSQL is that FirebirdSQL is not is heavily tested in enterprise environments. Remember, every time you go to slashdot.org, the database serving up that site is MySQL, but the database s
Pain in the ass to build (Score:4, Informative)
...start with a running version of Firebird!
Bootstrapping might seem like a K00l trick, but there is something uncomfortable about self-referential build procedures (not to mention that it was a pain in the ass to find a preexisting version of Firebird to run).
Gimme a pile of c/cpp & h files and let me build it from scratch, dammit!
Is that possible today? Dunno...the build guide [sourceforge.net] appears to be still under construction.
Re:Pain in the ass to build (Score:5, Informative)
Firebird 1.5 has been ported to C++ and doesn't need to be bootstrapped from an existing installation, just configure and make it.
Oh, the stupidity... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know Firebird DB since it's earlier days and I was a Interbase user before that. And I loved it. Why? Because the kind of job I did that time required a simple, efective, maintence-free database and Firebird is exactly that. You can just install it and forget it. The whole database is just one file (at least was) so a simple tar or zip will backup your stuff.
Yeah, yeah, I know there is MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc but as I said, I'm not on this kind of job anymore and even if I was, while firebird does what I want (and well) why should I care about other RDBMS?
Re:Oh, the stupidity... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's all well and good, except that you're completely wrong. First, you can back up any database that uses OS-level files using tar and gzip - that's certainly nothing special for Interbase/Firebird. Second, we experienced table corruptions constantly that resulted in rows that were still present in the table, but couldn't be fetched. Relational integrity means jack squat when referenced rows suddenly cease to be accessible.
Interbase/Firebird obviously worked for at least some people, or else it would've been altogether dropped years ago, but it's bitten enough people that it's just not accurate to call it "maintence-free" (unless that has a backhand slam at the abyssmal state of the administrative tools, and you meant "-free" as in "-not-capable-of").
Re:Oh, the stupidity... (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, no. A typical modern RDBMS will use a scheme similar to WAL (write ahead logging) to record data changes and allow recovery from crashes. Unless you can manage to make tar+gzip atomic (which is true if you're using a filesystem-level snapshot feature, but not true if you're actually using tar), you won't get a consistent on-disk snapshot of a DBMS like that. The reason is that the WAL and the data files will be out of sync.
In order to effectively back up such a database using tar, you need to shut down the DBMS (which is hardly an appropriate backup technique),
marketing... (Score:4, Funny)
Why not combine the fiestyness of a fox with the power of fire. I suggest something like Foxfire or Firefox!
One Firebird... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One Firebird... (Score:4, Funny)
don't jump to conclusions (Score:2, Insightful)
Either way, I doubt the people at Firebird deserve the occasional vitriol from others on this thread.
An extremly light weight SQL Engine? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:An extremly light weight SQL Engine? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
Because to please everyone, you have to...please every one. Which means to offer the features they need. And even if you're an ace programmer, I don't think it's all that easy to de-couple the code to the point that you can just flip a few compiler flags and add or remove features at will.
For instance, all you need is replication. What if someone else doesn't give flying rip about replication, but needs 100% Ansi SQL 99 compliance (something that very few database servers seem to have, oddly). In the stable releases of MySQL, subqueries aren't available. Subqueries! Don't tell me that you can always do the query some other way; I want my subqueries. So I opted for the heavier Postgres engine. When MySQL's stable version offers subqueries, I may switch to it, but at this point I'm fairly familiar with Postgres and don't necessarily want to risk having to rewrite thousands of lines of query code ("Standard" Query Language?!? *What* standard?)
Because there's no one group to please, I don't think anyone's ever going to "fill this niche" because there are a hundred other niches that need filling -- after all, for some people, internationalization and ISO Latin capabilities are crucial; for others, it's roughage.
Database development takes a while -- or at least, it takes a while to do well. There are a ton of MP3 players out there that actually work, but very few database servers that do. It requires a lot of mathematical, computational, and algorithmic knowledge, as well as being kept up to date on the latest in sorting methodolgies, matrices calculations and who knows what else (I sure don't!). So it's only really "profitable" to have one database project that offers all of the features people ask for, rather then 5 that cater to different preferences. Even "bulky" database servers like Postgres seem to run fine on what are today considered "obsolete" computers, so "fast" and "small" are not really the number one criteria anymore.
Re:An extremly light weight SQL Engine? (Score:3, Interesting)
The generally accepted value for SQL is: Structured Query Language
Re:An extremly light weight SQL Engine? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comon, every piece of software is a compromise. If you need a lot of features, then it isn't gonna be small. If you need it small and fast it's gonna be missing some features.
Fast, featureful, small. Pick two.
For those of you hung up on the whole name issue (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's a symptom of Mozilla both try to brand, and being an Open Source project in which one monolithic product was split into various and sundry projects, each of which got bizarely named. I mean, there's nothing about any of the application titles that indicates its use or purpose.
I myself vote for MozillaMail and MozillaBrowser or something of that ilk instead of Thunderbird and Firefox. Then the package now called "Mozilla" could be renamed to MozillaComplete or something like that.
Under whelmed (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the posts I'm seeing here so far belong in the other group. Today they can't seem to get past a naming issue (which the DB had first BTW), and appear to have no interest in what the product is.
When you are reading *and writing* to your database and there is money attached to the data integrity, this product will be fine. MySQL will not. Just imagine that you are penalised personally $1000 for every data munge that occurs in your database? I imagine that your affinity to the MySQL mindset will start to wane rather quickly.
This database is right up with PostgreSQL and as an added bonus Firebird can be deployed on Windows and Linux. (Plus StroredProcs and Triggers galore)
If all you can focus on however, is the project name, then be angry that Mozilla rudely co-opted the name that the DB first owned.
And to all the slashdotters that despair at the rising tide of inane useless postings - well, you are not alone. Slashdot used to be about geek topics for geeks. New product releases, gotchas, advice, interesting hardware hacks, solving problems with FOSS etc. Now I must content myself with the current posting selections.
And now the ultimate tirade: If you want to feed your geek/technical fetish, it's getting to the point where you'd do better watching McGyver or something.
AC
Firebird Documentation (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that this reduces uptake of the database, becuase of the barriers to just taking a casual peek of their features. The whole documentation is just locked away with the keys.
Perhaps this is becuase they want more people to have paid support? A PDF manual is all well and good, but at least give us a bone to chew on with a feature list, reasons why people should use the database and so forth.
And I'm still waiting for... (Score:4, Funny)
Why Firebird? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then, just to mix things up, you have SAP DB, which is open source with a very proprietary background, much like Firebird. And probably with a lot of the same problems in terms of administration and code accessibility.
I certainly wish the developers no ill will, or to disparage their efforts -- but I've yet to see the argument for using Firebird outside of legacy projects. It's easy to argue MySQL vs. Firebird, but PostgreSQL is the real competitor.
Re:Why Firebird? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not quite sure what it offers over PostgreSQL.
It's difficult to work with from an administrative level, and not terribly well documented...
I agree that the documentation is mediocre, but firmly disagree that it's hard to administer. The key is: don't. Make a couple of changes in the config file if you need to, configure automatic backups, then forget about it.
Shipping a product? Firebird is your friend (Score:3, Interesting)
Enter Firebird. Installation is a breeze under both operating systems and its all plug and play after that.
MySQL is nice but can be a maintenance headache and good luck included it in a shipping product, it violates the license or so the lawyers tell me.
I use mysql on my webservers, I embed firebird in my shipping products. Its been great so far!
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Firebird/fox (Score:2)
I'm afraid that's stretching the definition of 'prior art' to its very limit.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
mysql lets you put crap in your database (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:mysql lets you put crap in your database (Score:2)
-N
Re:mysql lets you put crap in your database (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, as a DBA, I don't like mySql because of the numerous gotcha's [sql-info.de] it has unlike postgreSql [sql-info.de]. That speaks for itself... but hey, if you write bugfree code and trust that others do as well, then go ahead, use it. BTW> I'm a fan of postgreSQL, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend that if $$$ are a concern.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Firebird(tm) and why I just don't care (Score:2)
Re:Firebird(tm) and why I just don't care (Score:4, Informative)
Hardly. They did publish a list of people the express dissatisfaction to, which in hindsight was an incredibly stupid mistake, but the wording wasn't anywhere near the "spam/flame all these people" you make out. Arguably they didn't expect many people to respond as the Firebird community (much like the Delphi community that uses Firebird) is fairly small, tight-knit and rational - so they didn't expect people to behave childishly by flooding the mailboxes of the Mozilla team.
However, because it made "good news" to have an open-source battle (or to create one, which the media is sometimes guilty of) it gained publicity fast and was picked up by people on both sides, including those who'd probably used neither product who thought it'd be good to fan the flames and as a result things escalated wildly - to the extent that some stupid Firebird fanboys mailbombed the Moz devteam while on the other hand some idiotic Mozilla zealots found an SSL bug in the Firebird website and deleted everything...
So to say that only the "FirebirdDB people" handled things improperly is a pretty wide-sweeping generalisation that, if you stepped back a bit and checked out the facts, might reveal a slight subconscious leaning to Mozilla 'cause you like their browser? I've used both products and saw plenty of mistakes made on *both sides*...
FYI I did a a writeup of events last time around [slashdot.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Firebird(tm) and why I just don't care (Score:3, Insightful)
If Mozilla had called their browser "Linux" or "Apache" or "Python" would you have taken the same position? Or do you feel it is only an issue if they choose the same name as a project you've personally worked with.
Mozilla was clearly in the wrong there, but they did the responsible thing and renamed their project to Firefox and even came up with a cool logo to match their new name. That issue is resolved to everyone's satisfaction, so w
Re:Firebird(tm) and why I just don't care (Score:5, Funny)
Yip yip yip! Ow! I sprained by brain!
Re:Firebird(tm) and why I just don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Firebird(tm) and why I just don't care (Score:2)
In practice, it doesn't matter. The term "relational database" used to describe a real piece of software does not neccessarily imply strict conformance to the relational model as defined in CS textbooks. It is just another example of the same word used to refe
Re:Firebird(tm) and why I just don't care (Score:2)
One's a database product. The other's a browser. Kinda hard to confuse the two, I should think. They don't compete in the same arena, unless you consider the entire open source/free software movement their arena.
In the end, it probably didn't really matter. Firebird is still obscure compared to some of the other longstanding offerings, and the name change didn't hurt the Mozilla team any, although I do wish they would stop naming each release, and just stick to one damn na
Re:Firebird(tm) and why I just don't care (Score:2)
Firebird is SQL, not relational.
Actually, the title of the Slashdot article and the linked Firebird project page both proclaim that it is relational.
And I could be wrong, but I thought SQL is specifically for relational databases. I suppose you could use a simple SELECT statement on a standalone table, but I would think most SQL breaks without a relational database underneath.
I agree with your rebuttal of the grandparent post
Re:Firebird(tm) and why I just don't care (Score:3, Insightful)
No, I do not think they should have given up thier name. They are entitled to use it as much as Pontiac is. From my understanding of the situation, the Phoenix code name was changed to Firebird, and then to Firefox for thier final brand. They were code names for projects similar to Merced or Coppermine. The final name was always going to be changed to something
Re:Who fucking cares? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:SQL not relational (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, but if you relationate without any protection, you're going to somehow end up with look-alike duplicates...
Re:SQL not relational (Score:2, Informative)
Re:SQL not relational (Score:2, Informative)
Re:SQL not relational (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously you can generate duplicate rows any number of ways if you include non-unique column combinations in your SELECT.
In any rate, because SQL allows you to create a table *without* a primary key (which then means that result sets can have duplicate rows) then it is not relational. End of story.
No one is saying that SQL is double-plus ungood, just pointing out that it is not relational (just as saying that 2+2 != 5, and the sky is not made of fish), and don't attribute deficiencies of SQL to deficiencies of the relational model.
You can begin to understand how Date and Pascal et al at DBDebunk.com feel if you consider the following scenario (this thought exercise presupposes that perfect is possible):
Now that this long-winded description is over you can replace The Perfect Car with The Relational Model and "Perfect Car" Implementations with {Oracle, MySQL, etc.}. You can replace "New Perfect Car Models" (including "Without Significant Scientific Background") with {XML, OO-DBMS, 'Persistence Layers', etc.}.
No one is saying that you cannot use SQL products or XML, or that you cannot accomplish tasks in these tools, just that when used in the context of data management they are poorly solving what the Relational Model already solved.
Because IT practitioners are poorly educated and increasingly fad-driven they latch onto non-solutions (like XML, "Post-Relational", OO-DBMS, etc.) and put little or no pressure on DBMS vendors to get it right. Even worse, if someone does release a Truly Relational DBMS there are no guarantees that anyone will buy it due to the ignorance of the IT community.
Put simply: People don't know what they're missing, so they don't know to ask.
Re:SQL not relational (Score:3, Informative)
That is one thing you should never do. Never ever trust any web site as authoritative.
What could be good for you is to read the arguments critically, and think. Perhaps even get a book, either on you library or buying it -- Date's _An Introduction to Database Systems_ *is* the standard reference textbook in the area, so it's worth it.
BTW, all caps in a title is perfectly accepted practice.
Hmm, not quite ... (Score:3, Informative)
It was once Netscape... until they screwed up in the market so bad that they gave up on it and released the source as:
Mozilla... until it became so bloated and overdesigned (and dangerously close to a movie company's trademark on a mutant lizard) that they had to start over as a project called:
That's a bit harsh - how about unfair competition? Anyway, "Mozilla" was the internal codename for Navigator at Netscape. It has always been it's name and it still is today (now for the whole suite).
To quote th