Brief pause of that Sudoku series :  I’m working on my object-relational mapping framework code-named Eth.

It’s vaguely similar to Glorp but much simpler and not as intelligent as Glorp.  This time, the resurrection of my framework is more like… a rewrite from scratch.  It all started on VAST, then I ported it to Dolphin then Squeak and now Pharo.  Hopefully, now I will spend more time writing it than porting it! Also, it will exclusively support Pharo.  I also decided to write some SUnit tests to make sure I can properly handle PostgreSQL, MySQL and Interbase for the first version.  But I am also planning on supporting SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, Access and Firebird.  Eventually!

Besides, I’m also …

I’m back in the blogosphere!

This blog will focus on Smalltalk (mostly Pharo, Squeak, Dolphin, VAST and VW), databases (usually MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, DB2, InterBase and Firebird), algorithms and open source tools.  I’ll throw in some literature, music and mathematics occasionally.

Requirements to enjoy this blog : an interest in problem solving, a database and a Smalltalk environment!

Do you ever stop and think? It happens to me all the time, random subjects kick in and I end up searching (aka googling) and today I wondered … Why is MySQLs logo a dolphin? Shame on me it took me so long to ask the question but as the saying goes, better late than never.

As per MySQLs own article:
“We’ve been discussing a new logo for at least a year”, says main developer and MySQL AB founder Michael “Monty” Widenius. “I am personally concerned about the survival of endangered species, and I liked the idea of the dolphin as soon as it came up. It combines great symbol value with a powerful, modern design.”

After a while the name was chosen out of 6357 suggestions by the community and that is how Sakila the dolphin came to be :) …. and we lived happily ever after (or at least hope to!)

I had a very interesting conversation on the phone with Jonas
Oreland today (he also blogged about it on his blog at
http://jonasoreland.blogspot.com).

There is a lot of interesting features coming up in MySQL Cluster
version 6.4. Online Add Node is one of those, which can be done
without any downtime and even with almost no additional memory
needed other than the memory in the new machines added into the
cluster. This is a feature I started thinking almost 10 years ago
so it's nice to see the fourth version of the solution actually be
implemented and it's a really neat solution to the problem,
definitely fitting the word innovative.

The next interesting feature is to use a more efficient protocol
for handling large operations towards the data nodes. This makes it
use less bits …