[Freecats-Dev] Berkeley database & Tcl

[Henri Chorand]

>  > Doesn't this rule it out for us?
>
> No no no no no! It doesn't rule anything out anything at all.
> I made a typo!
> Remove the word "don't" from that last sentence please :)
> I agree that the way it's written doesn't make any sense --
> logical or commercial!

Well, that's fine then.

I just checked the license options at:
http://www.sleepycat.com/download/licensinginfo.shtml
and it clearly states any open source license (among which GPL) allows 
free use.

I especially like the following bits:
Zero administration cost — eliminates the need for a DBA
Smaller footprint (less than 500Kb)
Simplicity of integration into an application
More speed and higher performance
Less complexity and more reliability.
and... the cat on their logo ;-)

I also see that they have a (non-free) XML module.

Concerning the possible use of Java, see at:
http://www.sleepycat.com/docs/ref/build_unix/intro.html
> The Berkeley DB distribution builds up to four separate
> libraries: the base C API Berkeley DB library and the
> optional C++, Java, and Tcl API libraries.

(and it also works on Macs)


A detailed features list is available at
http://www.sleepycat.com/products/featurelist.shtml

See what they say about custom data types:
> Berkeley DB can manage any data type that can be represented
> in a programming language. Simple scalar values or complex data
> structures can be used as either keys or as the values stored
> with each key.

...about indexes
> Berkeley DB uses 48 bits to address individual bytes in a
> database.
(maximum DB size is 256 terabytes)

... coarse-grained and fine-grained locking

...and about storing dababase in memory (if enough RAM)


Full documentation is available online at:
http://www.sleepycat.com/docs/index.html

last but not least, this thing HAS a Tcl API !


Dave, I also appreciated your comments on Tcl programming. I certainly 
did not know you had some experience of Tcl coding when I sent you the 
project draft document.


Now I have a few stupid^X^X^X^X^X^Xnewbie questions for David W.

If our server-side set of module includes a Berlekely DBMS, I guess we 
also need to have an Apache Tcl on this server in order to run Tcl 
commands at server level. Can you confirm?

If I'm correct, for those of us wo want to begin coding at some stage, 
shouldn't we try to begin building server environments (on our Mac/PCs) 
by installing Berkeley DB and Apache Tcl?

So, among the various ongoing projects I see at:
http://tcl.apache.org/
(mod_dtcl, neowebscript, mod_tcl, Apache rivet & Websh), can you suggest 
what we need and what a choice would mean?

As I believe Apache 2 would be a good idea, the remaining option seem to 
be mod_tcl (Websh being used to develop Web apps).

Of course, and as usual, feel free to forward this request to another 
member of Apache Tcl project in case it's not a trivial thing and you 
feel we might need more help.


Regards,

Henri Chorand