Some weeks ago there was a request about adding a feature that keeps (or gets) datatypes of colums, which are connected via foreign keys, in sync. While we have added this to our ToDo list, I thought of doing some simple LUA exercises to give the user at least a funtion to check if the FKs in the model all have columns with matching datatypes.
As it turned out such tasks can be done quite easily using our GRT-shell. And by writing some functions you can add features to Workbenchs interface.

To get in touch with the shell/GRT environment inside Workbench click the tiny black prompt-window-icon in the top right area of workbench (or choose ‘View->Advanced->GRT Shell’ from the main menu).  Some items in the UI are swapped/added: the sidebar on the right side gets a new tab named ‘GRT Shell’ featuring some more tool-panes (GRT Tree, Modules, Inspector) and on the bottom part of the main window - where the editors …

Before I am leaving for my summer vacation I wanted to share the first screen designs for the Mac version of Workbench. Click on the small images below to view the screenshots at full size.

The first shot shows the new Overview Page. It holds the Workbench Central panel (that can be collapsed of course), the Machine-Group panels and a Notes panel. Each machine tab holds a list of Database Connections and MySQL Models that are associated with that particular machine. (The list of Database Instances shown in this screenshot - which will give you access to administrative features - are a WB 6.0 feature coming later next year).

When you double-click a Database Connection you will get to the new SQL Query interface that is show on the next screenshot. When a MySQL Model has been double-clicked the model is opened on a new main-tab …

Sun continues to take a performance pounding, and the rumors of replacements, layoffs and revamps are beyond swirling and now perpetuating skepticism of the company. It strikes me as odd that Sun, which has embraced open source and is also the defacto leading corporate open source software contributor, is continually dogged by doubts about its transitions and tenures despite well-respected technology and participation in open source. Part of this lies in the company’s continuing dichotomy in strategy — a reference to tepid support for Linux and continued preference for and focus on Solaris. This is a large part of Sun’s ‘handicap,’ IMHO when it comes to Linux and open …

Good news, MySQL 5.1.26-rc has been released. From the release notes: “MySQL 5.1.26-rc is slated to be the last release candidate before we declare MySQL 5.1 as “production ready” (GA).”

If I were you, I’d start testing it out in environments that you’re planning to run MySQL in, or upgrade to 5.1 in. Feedback and testing to iron out issues, is important, so if you find a bug that affects you, report it!

In other news, on the Sun Developer Network (SDN) site, there’s a couple of resources such as the Python Developer Center and the Ruby Developer Center. At MySQL, we’ve got the DevZone, focusing on languages such as …

After our MySQL Workbench 5.0 GA release and a hotfix release a week later it is time to start our efforts on the next releases. As many of you might already know, my team is highly distributed and when doing planning tasks it is always good to sit together in a single room. So we will be meeting in Kiev, Ukraine next week.We are going to discuss the progress we have already made on the Linux / OS X / Solaris ports but the main focus will be in the new features for the next main release.A big thank you to everybody who posted their ideas on the forum. If you have not posted yet you are welcome to do so. Everything that is submitted before next week will be considered.

Solaris Express, Developer Edition 1/08 or SXDE 1/08 as its affectionately called within Sun is being released on monday. There are certain new features that I think needs to be highlighted specially for the PostgreSQL community.

Well for starters the versions of PostgreSQL included in SXDE are PostgreSQL 8.1.10 and PostgreSQL 8.2.5. (Unfortunately not all security fixes made it to the release though). However the big news is the PostgreSQL servers which are pretty hidden now has an administration GUI. Yes pgAdmin III is now included in SXDE.

Also there are lot of new features which now are quite well integrated with PostgreSQL.

For example take …

The Lua plugin support has been finally fixed and will be working in the next release. Together with a few other improvements, it’s now possible to write your own commands to do all kinds of tasks. Documentation for the plugin system is not yet written (and the previous one is outdated), but it should be straightforward to copy the supplied Lua plugin and change it to do something else. All you need is to know a little Lua (which is a simple scripting language) and explore Workbench internals using the GRT Shell (View -> Advanced -> GRT Shell).The sample Lua plugin is located in the modules folder. You can copy it to the custom plugins folder which is shown in the GRT Shell at startup and change things like the module name and add your own functions. I’ll write more about how to write such functions in a future post, like after the next WB is actually released.There are a few ways that plugins …

Have you ever wanted to know who’s the top committer in your company?
In my previous company we etablished the term “CVS King”, a title comparable to “Employee of the month”. The developer with the most cvs commits was the “CVS King of the month”. We determined who was the “CSV King” using commit emails that were sent to all developers on each cvs commit.
Two years ago we switched to Subversion, so now we’re talking about the “Subversion King”. Naturally all this is anything but serious ;)

Anyway, today i programmed a little php script that uses a different approach to determine who is the “Subversion King of the Month”. It’s counting the line delta directly from the svn repository using svnlook. So the developer with the most lines added to …