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Is there any free IDE for Pl/SQL development
I use SQL Developer every day to develop packages. Whilst it's not perfect, it's got some useful features:
Syntax highlighting;
Autocompletion;
Debugging (although not of live requests as far as I can tell);
Simple connection configuration (JDBC-based as well as TNSNAMES);
...
It's also free, unlike the (admittedly better) Toad mentioned previously.
Toad gets reasonable comments from the developers around me that have to work with Oracle. Everyone hates Oracle SQL developer. I have little personal experience.
I am using PL/SQL Developer from Allround automation, too.
I kinda hate it dearly for all its bugs and that we paid a full year maintenance w/o seeing anything new in that period.
But for some rather strange reason it still beats the hell out of all the other outrageously overprized and underfeatured tools for PL/SQL.
And I am not talking about Oracle administration, which it can do quite good as well, thx to how fast one can script things in it.
Its focus is PL/SQL, not point & click table creation. But than, my Grand Ma could build a tool for managing tables, users, etc. A good code editor is not as easy. g
One thing, besides the countless little bugs that face every time is, that it is completely ignorant to the fact, that Oracle has an escape syntax for non-standard identifiers.
You can't do much using its GUI with such objects but have to resort to the command window or any other editor to script it yourself.
btw, the fact that I still use it and prefer over its alternatives doesn't reflect very well on the market of commercial Oracle IDEs, IMO.
I think for writing DB code it is better than anything from any DBMS I have come across so far.
It has very little GUI support for stuff, but its different code editors are very capable and productive.
I personally like http://www.allroundautomations.nl/plsqldev.html
Quite usefull for PL/SQL and Oracle in general. But not free.
SQL Tools is a withdraw PL/SQL IDE that is lightweight and prompt, and it's unconstrained. Although one dimension it's absent is a debugger agree.
SQL Tools is a free PL/SQL IDE that is lightweight and fast, and it's free.
Although one feature it's missing is a debugger support.
There's also the open source plugin for NetBeans, named PL/SQL Editor.
It's currently (version 2.1) very rudimentary, requires a live database to work on (no offline work with on-disk PL/SQL script sources) and I couldn't get the navigation ("Go To Declaration") to work on my Oracle 10 application.
I have been using Squirrel SQL for years and like it b/c it's database independent. it does have some limitations but if I need something with more DBA tools I would also use SQL Developer.
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I see this claim made in a rant here http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.456646.47 . As well as in various other rants that can be looked up on google using "oracle sucks". Ok, well, if let's say something as low key as Drupal doesn't have an easy to use visual IDE I can understand why, but if this is really true about something as big money as Oracle, why don't we see an entire ecosystem of user-friendly visual tools for basic DBA work on Oracle? I mean, people who work on Oracle work for companies with big budgets, so surely they could afford a license for a fancy "sit tight and enjoy the ride Oracle admin studio" of some sort to help developers do some stuff by themselves without pestering the DBA? Or do these tools really exist and do good job whereas the people doing the rants are simply unaware of them?
Quest Software has a variety of tools, primarily TOAD but also Spotlight and there is a backup monitoring tool in beta, for database admin.
Part of the issue is that Oracle runs on a variety of platforms, such as Solaris, Linux and Windows. The larger (and therefore more complex) installs have been on more exotic hardware. A 'full stack' admin tool would really have to be native to the database platform, and that just hasn't been practical. That's one reason why the OEM stuff is built as a web-app, and why SQL*Plus, the standard client, has stuck as a command line tool. As has RMAN, the backup/recovery manager.
Another issue is that there is a lot of baggage in Oracle. Rather than a simple "Database = File" or "Table = File" model, Oracle needed to cope with data volumes too big for single files. So they have a concept of a tablespace which maps database objects to data files. That's not so much an issue with modern filesystems.
Finally, Oracle is a high-end product. You use it in situations where the cheaper alternatives can't cut it. So it is often applied in more complex environments which would require more admin anyway. In that way, it is more a case that with Oracle, you can admin your way out of situations which impossible for a competitor product.
There are tools for Oracle, both built-in and third-party.
I think that the tools for SQL Server are a lot easier to use. And third party tools for SQL Server (i.e. Red Gate) are also extremely easy to use and powerful (compared to Toad, which has a byzantine and complex user interface)
Oracle is a multi-platform database and it dates from the original RDBMS implementations generation (one of the first which competed to replace older systems), so it has a lot of layers at install which can be very challenging to deal with. PL/SQL is also more difficult for development compared to SQL Server, MySQL or DB/2 in many ways.
From the point of view of small development shops without dedicated development DBA (or a production DBA who actually understands development) resources, Oracle is less productive than SQL Server or MySQL.
For DBA management and monitoring there's Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control. Not an IDE, purely an enterprise-wide administration tool for all of the databases in an organization. Everything from backups to performance monitoring, job creation, alerts, and so forth.
When I was a grasshopper Master Po told me : 'A fool with a tool is still a fool'. As others have pointed out Oracle is a high-end product. You really have to read the documentation, once you understand the basic concepts of oracle there are a lot of tools available. Allmost all tasks are command-line based. A lot of different GUI applications are available to assist you. Oracle's main tools are Enterprise Manager and SQL Developer. Server side you have a few tools you can use: Database Configuration Assitant, Network Configuration Assistent, Migration Assistent, etc. Choose the one you like for a sprecific task. Bottom line is : it's not a point and click application.
If you're deploying Oracle in a large corporate environment, there is an ecosystem of user-friendly tools to administer the database. But most of those tools are relatively painful to install-- they need their own database, for example, and install components on the database server along with the central repository. It makes perfect sense to invest in this sort of heavy-weight infrastructure when you're spending 6 or 7 figures on Oracle database licenses and you need to handle things like continuous monitoring and alerting.
On the other hand, most of the folks that are complaining about Oracle usability are trying to install and run Oracle in a much different environment. If you're a developer, for example, that wants to run Oracle on your local laptop so that you have the full stack installed, you're not going to need or want one of these heavyweight tools. Those folks are going to end up with whatever tools Oracle installs by default. Traditionally, those tools have been somewhat less than ideal. Oracle is getting better about that by shipping a lightweight Enterprise Manager web client with the database that is very useful for these types of installs. But it can still be a bit of a fight to ensure that the Enterprise Manager web client works perfectly on a developer's Windows laptop install which leads a non-trivial number of developers to conclude that "Oracle sucks".
I use an app called PL/SQL developer, and it works pretty well, IMO.
www.enterprise-elements.com is one such tool
You have noticed that you are pointing to a four-year-old rant right? By a supposed DBA who didn't even know enough to turn off unneeded services in order to shorten up the load time?
I'm sorry, but if the complaint is "why can't this industrial-strength DB be managed as easy as this lightweight, feature-poor, freeware?" then I think it is a self-answering question.
To answer the rest, yes there are tools out there. To specifically answer your " I mean, people who work on Oracle work for companies with big budgets, so surely they could afford a license for a fancy "sit tight and enjoy the ride Oracle admin studio" of some sort to help developers do some stuff by themselves without pestering the DBA? " , this is more often a factor of a DBA choosing to lock down privileges - not a function of the database itself. A tool is no use to a developer if their user account is not granted the rights to do what they want.
Rants like that one? Looks like someone tasked with running an app they had no interest in actually learning much about. No wonder they got frustrated. Yes, sometimes Oracle causes frustration of its own, but many of these rants are from people who probably picked a database platform far above their needs, and are disinclined to really learn how to manage it.
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Closed 10 years ago.
I cant stand oracle reports builder. Its constantly crashing and sucking in general. Copying and pasting stuff only sometimes works. Elements visualy look selected after you unselect them. AARRRRRRRRGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I need another tool. Are their any alternatives for designing the report jsps?
This is an old thread but here my take on it. For experienced developers (I should point out that I am one), Oracle Reports is unbelievably productive tool. For new developers, it can be baffling and frustrating. I have been in the "market" for an Oracle Reports alternative for some time now and have yet to find a tool that can do what Oracle Reports can do for me. The tools I have looked at:
Oracle BI Publisher: Officially, this is the successor to Oracle Reports. One day it will be as good as Oracle Reports...right now it primarily uses MS Word as the report designer. Its not fun to to wrestle with Word (nested) tables (which replaces frames). I would prefer Reports Frames any day.
Pentaho: I looked at this with minor interest, it's commercial open source and I thought did a pretty good job. Not sure how it scales and like all open source projects, is at the mercy of an active community.
MicroStrategy: This is again a very seasoned product. BI is their bread and butter and so I would expect that its pretty good. I had a vendor do a POC and they replicated one of my most complex "Form" type reports (a business document, bill-of-lading). The price however it at enterprise level (read: very pricy). Although for departmental deployments they have a 'free' version.
Microsoft Reporting: This one has good promise but it is sold primarily with MS SQL Server and I being an Oracle-guy has felt internal resistance to this tool. One of these days I will overcome it when the Reports Builder has crashed one too many times.
There are scores of others like JasperReports, Actuate, Business Objects (Crystal), Information Builders etc.
Don't bother switching tools, you'll probably only be disappointed. I've used many reporting tools and all of them have significant issues. No matter which tool you use you'll probably end up fighting it and gradually move more and more of your logic into the database. The more SQL tricks you learn the less you'll have to rely on poorly designed reporting tools.
Microstrategy or Business Objects.
You may develop a custom software as erbsock has told, like a lightweight BO, create views from the selected fields by users, name them as reports and schedule a job to send them as a CSV file or in a jsp file , whatever the view part is.
Also in Oracle Reports Builder, if you are not mentioning the old 6i interfaced tool, try to build one big query and try to build the XML using the publisher. I am outdated about it , but remember something like that.
I will ask about it to an expert friend of mine.
Best Regards,
Kayhan YÜKSEL
Use SQL and understand your data model and plug it into an excel spreadsheet using ODBC?
After using the tool for a year, we are familiar than past. We still have challenges that implementations worked fine in TOAD, but the code does not work in Oracle Report.
After crashing several time, we have done CTR+S before run the project. Plus, we save every hours as a previous draft.
It help us to lost our works but we need more space for them.
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I'm looking for recommendations for an easy to use reporting/business intelligence tool that can interface with an sql server or access database. It can be web-based or a desktop tool.
Ideally it would be freeware or low cost, and easy to use for users who are not that technically savvy (below the level of someone who can generate reports and complicated queries in Access).
Any tools I've seen so far (such as Crystal Reports) are either too expensive or too complicated to use for non-power users.
I think the two most well known open source alternatives are:
Pentaho Reporting
JasperReports
I've been looking at them previously, but honestly haven't tried any of them as my company at the time decided to go for a commercial (expensive) alternative.
Your requirements are very unspecific. You are searching a simple tool. Do you mean an ad-hoc reporting tool such as i-net Clear Reports?
Pentaho reporting (from the Community edition of the Pentaho BI Suite) might be worth a look.
Reporting Services Report Builder for SQL is about the simplest.
You do have to provide a model of your data for it but that would be necessary for users who dont understand the data structures anyway (sounds like you have that sort of user).
RS comes free with SQL Server too.
I hate to say it, but the one thing you'll find users doing even if you get a reporting tool is that they'll move their data to Excel for final output.
This is one of the reasons why SQL Server's BI tools integrate so nicely with Excel - they did some studies that found users have a tendency to revert to Excel, since everyone knows how to use and and knows how to make Excel output look exactly the way they want it to.
Having said this, you might want to consider some Excel based reporting solutions, or tools that integrate with Excel.
Palo, which is free, is similar to Cognos TM1 (spendy!) and will let users create reports in Excel. It also has a very Excel-like web interface.
You can go through SBOeCube, this is a Business Intelligence Reporting Tool for SAP Business One.
will this work for you?
http://www.hkvstore.com/phpreportmaker/
and of course you can always start your own.
If they're that technically unsavvy, you'll also need to make sure the database presents useful entities. If they have to assemble their own Orders, for instance, they're not likely to be successful no matter how simple the tool is.
I've seen the "you can write your own reports!" thing blow up several times.
I invite you to try DBxtra.
www.dbxtra.com
QlikView is one of the emerging reporting tool
http://www.qlikview.com/
Perhaps you can try Quick Reporting Tool. It is simple and easy to use. The SQL scripts created from its Developer Module can be directly executed by user in the End-User Module without any screen design or programming skill needed.
Online demo:
Quick Reporting Tool Demo
WebSite:
www.little-creations.net
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What technologies/languages/applications do you think have hit their peak on Windows platforms, those that are or should be slated for obsolescence? My votes, might be wishful thinking in some regards:
VBScript
Microsoft Access
ODBC
Flash
I ask because we are in the process of setting future directions for technologies and application development, i.e. don't use these unless there is no choice.
I think Windows has peaked in general. The latest version of Windows, Vista was viewed negatively across the USA, there are numerous examples of major organizations in Europe and Africa phasing out their use of MS Windows in favor of Linux, and all of this has come to great benefit of the Linux vigilante's. The worst part is that Microsoft employees some of the smartest people in the computer industry but are usually screwed over by Marketing people.
I expect I'm going to get hard in down rank points for this answer, but I figure its worth it. As a senior/lead developer I wish I could use a couple Microsoft technologies but I'm afraid of pulling my company under the Microsoft tax of existence, so that biases me to toward a company that had a big role in getting me into programming ( Apple Basic, then MS Basic, and then c++ with the win32 API in the late 90's ) which is disappointing.
I think that MS Access is not a dead technology/product. However the legacy 'Jet Database Engine' that is often associated with Access is definitely in obsolescence mode. I dont; think MS has released a 64-bit Jet Engine (I know they intended not to, but wouldn't be surprised if demand made them change their minds). Also the Jet Engine is no longer part of MDAC.
MS wants the future of Access database engines to be an SQL Express/SQL Compact/MSDE type of engine.
I really don't think Flash is doomed .. I'd bet on its future over Silverlight's right now
Not sure why Access is in your list. Still used heavily and a good choice for small scale DB.
Here is what I think MS wants to kill... whether it happens or not is a different story.
WinForms
VB6
C++ (for desktop apps)
IMHO Classic ASP (as opposed to ASP.Net) and Visual Basic (again, as opposed to Visual Basic.Net)?
In all honestly, I really think that anything which has the ability to make this list won't ever be doomed. It's really really hard to retire a technology. Look at COBOL. Everyone says that COBOL has met it's end of days and has been saying that for years and lo and behold, people still program in it, and there are a multitude of production systems running it.
He's another example, my first job out of college was a heavy Delphi shop. No VB and MS technologies are evil. It was clear that everyone in my area and most people around the U.S. were dropping it in favor of Visual Basic, or something more powerful like C++. I swore up and down Delphi was a dead technology and that Borland was going down the drain. That being said, it's clearly in use today. I was wrong. Popular technologies will never really die, or become obsolete, because of their ability to change and because people depend on system which are currently working (look at FORTRAN, I know of some physicists which still use programs written in it). Once a language/system gains popularity, there will always be a need for someone who knows it, and this means that there will always be a need for someone to improve. There are a lot of technologies that die, but that is because they were never popular enough to begin with.
Of the list that you gave, I would say maybe ODBC could be the one phased out, but with other legacy technologies, I think it is going to be a long time. You could maybe argue VB6 is going to be done away with, but I think it won't be long until someone (not MS) writes a new compiler for it and not necessarily revitalizes it's use, but extends it's life. There's too much written in it for organizations to just throw it away. People argue about things being rewritten, but how often does it successfully happen? The main mentality of people outside of IT is: "don't fix it if it isn't broken." That is going to keep technologies around for a long long time. We can say something is dead, but in reality they all will be around for a long time.
I agree that MS don't support C++ at all well, is this an attempt to create coders who can only write business apps, and therefore don't directly challenge MS themselves?
The other dead in the water is Vista, roll on Windows 7.
By flash do you mean Actionscript or the platform all together?
Flash CS4 has shown some great potential.
Here's a cool feature tour of CS4
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We're a .NET team which uses the Oracle DB for a lot of reasons that I won't get into. But deployment has been a bitch. We are manually keeping track of all the changes to the schema in each version, by keeping a record of all the scripts that we run during development.
Now, if a developer forgets to check-in his script to the source control after he ran it - which is not that rare - at the end of the iteration we get a great big headache.
I hear that SQL Compare by Red-Gate might solve these kind of issues, but it only has SQL Server support. Anybody knows of a similar tool for Oracle? I've been unable to find one.
Red Gate Schema Compare for Oracle has now been released!
http://www.red-gate.com/products/schema_compare_for_oracle/index.htm
There is a 28-day fully functional free trial. Please give it a go and let us know your feedback!
TOAD is a great generic tool for Oracle development and i think a similar feature is in the basic version. You can download a trial version (make sure you don't get the old free version of TOAD, that is about 4 years old)
If you don't want to buy a tool, and you need something less flash you could roll your own quite easily. I just found Schema Compare Tool for Oracle which looks very simple, and has a nice baseline concept. This is very handy if you want to track changes since the last code check-in. This way you discover changes that may have been made to multiple DBs by hand, but not documented.
PS: The "SQL Compare by Red-Gate" demo looked very nice indeed... however the voice over cracked me up... sounded like a BBC documentary.
OraPowerTools will do the job.
There is also a "Diff Wizard" in Oracle SQL Developer, but I haven't used it yet.
Hitchhiker,
If you're willing to spend some money, TOAD has "compare schemas" functionality which should do what you're after. It'll report the differences and produce a migration script to bring one into line with the other.
I've never used the script, so I can't vouch for it, but I have used it to make sure our build scripts are complete.
Mark - I would like to be able to easily synchronize two database schemas. Specifically, this demo looks like heaven to me.
Check out Oracle Enterprise Manager Change Management Pack, its an Oracle tool for this:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/oem/pdf/ds_change_pack.pdf
You can try it there:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/oem/index.html
There are various tools out there that you can use, I haven't used any of them myself though so I've got no comments to make about them, but another "trick" that you can use is to create a trigger on DDL events, so you can basically capture (to a table, or log file or whatver) any changes done between deployments.
DDL Triggers