Newsletter :: April 2007
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E V E N T S
2nd Global db4o User Conference 2007 (dUC)
July, 9 and 10 - Fort Mason - San Francisco, CA, United States
Registration has opened – Secure Your Early-Bird Discount Now!
Embedded Systems Conference 2007
April 4 - San Jose, CA, United States
K U D O O F T H E M O N T H
"I switched to db4o and in two months I have gotten further than I did with the RDBMS in two years!"
--Pelinville, 3/7/2007
A R T I C L E S
-- VERSION 6.1 STABLE AND READY FOR SHIPMENT --
Based on 228,000 downloads since Version 6's first release in November 2006 as well as on extensive feedback from db4o's community of more than 20,000 registered developers, the db4o team is proud to now declare version 6.1 "stable" and hence ready for shipment.
Over the last month, the core committer team has once again worked hard to fix the list of remaining bugs, as visible in db4o's Tracker System Jira, codenamed "Hammerfest". The resulting version 6.1.301 is strongly recommended for any ongoing development project and basis for direct 24/7 support as a commercial db4o Developer Network (dDN) member.
6.1 stable can now be downloaded from db4o's website.
-- 6.2 DEV WITH UNIQUE CONSTRAINTS, COMMIT-TIME CALLBACKS --
Also available for free download is the development version db4o 6.2 from the db4o Download Center. This major software update, which is not yet recommended for production use, features a new, more powerful exception handling. db4o 6.1 and lower do not throw runtime/unchecked exceptions, but simply absorb them to keep the engine always running. This has proven to limit the ability to debug and to implement new features.
Based on the new exception handling, db4o 6.2 now features long-time awaited Unique Constraints, which allow you to specify that a particular field must be unique across all instances of a Class. More about this feature here.
v6.2 also adds Commit-Time Callbacks to External Callbacks. This allows users to be notified of commit-time events 'On Committing' - which is called before the commit actually happens - and 'On Commit' - which takes place after the commit is complete. More about this feature here.
Though the new exception handling will not affect db4o in runtime, it will be necessary to plan for a debugging session of your application based on the newly surfacing exceptions in your development environment. At this stage, with v6.2 in development stage, you should only test your application to give feedback and to explore the new features, but not use this version in production. More about the updating process here.
All new features, improvements and bug fixes of V6.2 dev are visible here at a glance.
-- SPRING, CASTLE, RSSOwl AMONG FAST GROWING NUMBER OF db4o COMMUNITY PROJECTS --
14 new projects have recently been added to the db4o Projects section, a surge of 50% since the beginning of 2007. This growth has been fueled by the successful launch of a third licensing option, the db4o Open source Compatibility License (dOCL), which allows developers to embed and distribute db4o in open source projects, even if they are not licensed under the GPL.
Among the new projects are:
- Spring-Modules 0.8 now include db4o
- Castle open source project for .NET, now provides a db4o Facility to use db4o from Castle web containers
- Restlet, a Java framework to help developers build applications based on REST (Representational State Transfer) concepts, made db4o the recommended way to persist domain objects associated to REST resources
- RSSOwl 2.0, a comprehensive platform-independent RSS reader, is now powered by db4o
- The CLSA framework for .NET has now a db4o reference implementation, provided by Pham Huu Le Quoc Phuc, who found a perfect match between a 100% OO framework and db4o's OO persistence engine
- Shalma is a Java web framework for building web enterprise systems for small to medium-sized businesses, freely distributed under the EPL
The team at RSSOwl tested many DB solutions before making their final verdict: "We have to thank db4o for allowing us to use it in our open source project. We have gone through months of trying different DB-solutions (including JDBC and JPA), but db4o looks like the solution we were always looking for in terms of easiness and performance!" says Benjamin Pasero, RSSOwl project lead.
The Projects Wiki features entirely community-driven projects to support the use of db4o, e.g., in frameworks or as open source applications, which make great samples. We invite all open source developers to register their projects in order to share their work with the community. More about the benefits and process of registering here.
-- SUN INVITES db4objects TO SPEAK AT EMBEDDED SYSTEMS CONFERENCE --
Sun Microsystems has invited db4objects as the only ISV partner to present at an exclusive event for Java real-time and embedded software developers, "The Art of Saving Time, Money and Your Sanity with New Java Technologies." Sun is hosting the event during the Embedded System Conference 2007 in San Jose, CA on April 4.
Java legend Bob Pasker, co-founder of WebLogic (BEA) and involved in Java since the beta one release in 1995, will speak about db4o at this half-day long event at the San Jose Museum of Art, underlining the growing importance of a native Java persistence solution in the embedded software space.
We invite you to attend this free event to learn more about the benefits of db4o and Java for embedded environments, including:
- Gaining More Control over your Java environment
- Benefits of an object database for embedded Java applications
- Leverage Java skills & code in more predictable environments
- Serve Real-Time & Embedded Applications
- Embed Java SE and db4o on a wider range of supported platforms
More information and registration here.
-- NOVATOR DRILLS BETTER HOLES WITH db4o --
Novator, a high-technology, engineering company that is revolutionizing the aerospace industry by implementing Orbital Drilling, used db4o to improve their drilling management software.
One of the corner stones in the advanced drilling solution is the Twinspin Manager software. With Twinspin Manager, all drilling parameters for each hole are set, holes are defined in drilling batches, and the drilling process is monitored and logged.
"The primary reason for choosing db4o was implementation speed," said Patrik Rydberg, software architect at Novator. "Since db4o uses native Java, it worked without changing anything in the domain model, and without writing any database mappings. The switch from file system logging to database logging took, literally, thirty minutes. Also, native Java queries enables the use of standard refactorings, such as renames of fields and classes, without breaking the queries, or having to rewrite mappings, making the code base clean and easy to understand and maintain."
L O O K I N G I N T O T H E M I R R O R
Selected press coverage about db4o since the last newsletter:
"The busy Java developer's guide to db4o" (1)
IBM developerWorks, March 20, 2007, by Ted Neward
"Using an embedded database to simplify device data replication and synchronization"
Embedded.com, March 20, 2007, by Rick Grehan
"Open-Source Globalization"
Dr. Dobb's, March 14, 2007, by Christof Wittig
"db4objects: Broadening Appeal to Open Source Projects"
OpenEnterpriseTrends.com, March 13, 2007, by Vance McCarthy
"Object-oriented database programming with db4o"
The Code Project, March 9, 2007, by Buu Nguyen
"Open-source data management targets Windows Mobile devices"
WindowsForDevices.com, March 7, 2007
"Using an Object-Oriented Database in a Web Site"
ASP Today, March 6, 2007, by Jim Paterson
"Funambol and db4objects Provide Open Source Solution to Enable Complex Data for Mobile Devices"
Sys-Con Media, March 6, 2007
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With best regards
The db4objects team.
www.db4o.com
newsletter@db4o.com
Phone +1 (650) 577-2340
1900 S Norfolk Street, Suite 350
San Mateo, CA 94403 (USA)