Anyway: considering my last talk about MySQL vs MSSQL and the fact that I decided to choose MySQL sure deserves a followup. I will tell you how it's working out for me.
I will also talk some about where I'm heading with regards to development, cause while .NET will continue to be my platform I am not sure MS and Visual Studio will be.
Anyway lets start with an update on databases and database management tools. MySQL is simply looking better and better to me each single day. Performance is pretty amazing. Had some full text indexing issues which basically comes from the fact that MySQL only uses one single index per query when it comes to optimization. In short I wanted to do a where matches(...) and anothercol=somevalue. Actually it was even worse, it was a join with another table and it basically had my 2 million record first table being table scanned even though I did have an index on anothercol. But it was easily solved by adding the information joined in into the full text index . Makes update and inserts a somewhat slower but in the end that doesn't matter.
As for the administration tools: Of highest importance for me is,an admin tool needs to start up ASAP. And I mean *A*S*A*P*. To be honest, I feel happy every day I *DONT* need to fire up SQL Server Management Studio. Since I have some clients running SQL 2000 I do need to run SQL 2000 Enterprise Manager and I feel ok with that. It loads up quickly and feels "light" and responsive. And Management Studio simply doesn't.
Cause lets face it. I am a developer. I understand MS is going for the slick look when it comes to OS (Vista glass gui etc) but when it comes to development and management, my opinion is MS should focus to improve performance and load time for each version. Not adding slick GUI features and stuff making it slower and slower.
With SQLYog on the other hand, I mean, I can't even blink before the GUI is up.
Now lets turn to IDE. I have been a fan and practically lived in Visual Studio since VS 97. Yes, I am that old. Actually I'm even older - even did som Visual C++ 1.52 development (maybe there are some other dinosaurs out there who knows what I'm talking about, otherwise lets just say, it was an integrated IDE for compiling 16 bit Windows apps, MFC and C++...). Must have been 1995 or so. But VS 97 was a match in heaven. I still keep all the keyboard bindings from VS 97 in my Visual Studio of today. Which by the way is VS 2005. VS 2008??? Lets start talking about that. I honestly don't know what to do. If you had asked me 10 years ago I would probably have drewled cause "a new version, technically much better is available". But nowadays, I really feel like, will it really make my apps that better?? Cause in the end that's what matters. And the reality is - I do have VS 2003 solutions I still need to maintain. I simply can't have yet another version of VS on my box.
So what to do? Exploring other options of course. Searched for Borland C# Builder - seems to be gone, now integrated into a RAD Studio or something, gives me the feeling of another beast. So - downloaded SharpDevelop. Just a 8MB install file. I can live with that :) Took a minute to install. Opened up a Windows Forms solution I have (pretty small and simple). Compiled. Run. Set a breakpoint. Everything is WORKING!!! Simply fantastic. So lightweight, still all I need! Next - one of my ASP.NET sites. Loaded the solution. Ok, no ASP.NET visual designer. I really can live with that. Next, run. Nothing happened. "Cant start dll project" or something. Make sense, but how to fix it? Googled some and found that we need set the "Start external program" to C:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\WebDev.WebServer.EXE.
I hooked up the command line arguments /Path:C:\working\systementor\sites\airengines\airengines /port:8001 /vpath:/
And hey, it's running. Set up a breakpoint. Browsed to the page. Hey - back in debugger!!! All is working. I am amazed.
So, I will give this a serious try. I honestly mean it. Of course, so far I have opened up two simple solutions, I have one solution consisting of around 15 different projects being console apps, class dlls , Win Forms apps. If that one works I know I am home. I will report more on this, I promise.
So, tip to MS: the view of the world for us developers might not be yours. What's important is
- quick and lightweight tools and IDEs. Quick to fire up and responsive.
- small installs. It's not reasonable to spend hours and hours to install the IDE - and then database engine. Not to forget hour(s) to download first.
-Flexibility - in the dreamworld I could take any computer at all, and have it fixed and ready for compilation and work in just 15 minutes.
Cause I am moving to a Internetnet oriented architechture for all my stuff. I already keep all my sourcecode on a remote box (with SourceGear - yes it's free for a single user). I need/want to get rid of the dependence on my specific development box for compilation and code writing - and to be able to do that I simply need to be able to set up a new box in minutes, not hours.
So I will try to keep you all updated on this matter, however, kind of depends on the baby when you'll here from me next :)