Jiří {x2} Činčura

FBCon 10 – “live” feed

The conference is starting today. I’ll write here during the days about what’s going on. Also check Twitter with hashtag #FBCon10 for most recent quick messages.

Day 1:
Well, I was not so active posting new content during the day, mainly because I had no connection, so I was only tweeting. Right now we’re slowly approaching the end of first day. All the sessions we’re interesting so far.

Vlad’s about new features in SQL was a good summary of all the pieces of information you collect throughout the year. The next session from Holger about character set was good as well. Though as person from .NET world my databases are alway UTF8, so I don’t care too much. But I understand, that understanding how Firebird works with different characters set is crucial to know, and not only for migrating i.e. legacy database to UTF8 or something like that. Than was my session. Most interesting, of course. Well, not a lot of .NET people, only 4 attended. Frank’s session (actually two) about trees in database was a great, if you’re not familiar about some basic concepts of storing trees and querying these. Especially if you are (were) not familiar with recursive CTEs (which I’m using a lot).

Right now the last session of day, Holger’s about UDFs and 32bit & 64bit and Lazarus and FreePascal, is slowly starting. As I’m not using UDFs, because I’m relying strongly on built-in functions (and you can’t, right now, write these in managed code ), I’ll just check what are the challenges and problems today with it.

Day 2:
Connection is today little bit better, so I can post something. We’re now in the middle (slowly approaching) of the second day. So far I’ve seen the Vlad’s presentation about ODS improvements in Firebird 3. Although it’s probably not going affect my databases so much, it’s nice to hear somebody explaining the internals as it brings you more complete view on the topic. Then we have seen some nice features of IBExpert tools from Holger. Some are really advanced. And right now I’m sitting on session about Firebird performance comparison and it’s a nice summary of different stuff you can buy and/or do to make (or not) make your database(s) running faster. In the other room Roman is doing session, but as there was some swapping, I don’t know the name .

Dammit. My session is now done, but my computer froze while switching virtual machines. :-\ At that time I really appreciated my effort to keep my system clean and of course my SSD. In under two minutes I was back. At least there was lot more people visiting my session compared to yesterday.

We’re slowly approaching the end of the end of the day 2, only one session comparing Firebird 2.5 architectures is left. Because I’m using 2.5 version for more than a year, I’m confident I know all the important differences. Again, I’m looking to the after-dinner talks, because you’ll learn a lot of stuff (not only Firebird or databases related).

Day 3:
The final day, day 3, is now over. That means also the conference is over. Surprisingly this day was most interesting (related to session topics) for me. This first session was about the Firebird future features from Dmitry (presented by Vlad). Then Thomas’ about audit and trace. The trace is in fact, from using it perspective simple, but a lot of people might not know about it. Roman has a similar session about RIA and Java+Firebird (mine was OData+Firebird), so I was able to see how it’s done in Java world. The IBEBlock language session, well I was surprised how much functions you have available there, some of these really advanced and you can still use it as DLL and scripting. My, already mentioned, OData+Firebird session was, as I was kind of expecting after previous days, based at least on the peoples elaboration at the Q&A, interesting for them as well (and everything was working smoothly ). And that’s pretty much it, last day of conference.

This year, IBExpert team did again great job with organization. Not only conference, but also all the stuff around it (except the internet connection, which was really bad). As a speaker I was in particular pleased with the recording of session. No software hassle, just some frictionless hardware box recording directly from VGA between notebook and projector.

During evening events we did some Mercedes Benz cars driving, as the conference was in their customer center and of course exchanged a lot words about Firebird, topics realted to Firebird, but also absolutely unrelated topics. Not a lot of .NET people, only few, but the others were little bit interested about the .NET world.

The next one is already planned for the beginning of 2012 (of course if somebody will not do one sooner). Looking forward to it already.

FBCon 2010 Bremen – topics on Firebird & .NET

I almost forgot to announce the topics touching ADO.NET provider for Firebird. This year I have three sessions. You can find more info, and register, of course, at firebird-conference.com. Here’s the list.

• New features in .NET provider for Firebird
• Connecting to Firebird using .NET provider from various devices – iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone,…
• Creating services for rich internet applications using Firebird and the OData protocol

So if you’re interested in any of these topic, come, ask, participate. Especially hearing scenarios in what you’re using the .NET provider is very valuable for me. I also like talking between sessions, I always learn something new and I’m eager to to my best to answer all questions people are asking.

Jak jsme jeli na MS Fest

Před týdnem, joj to to letí, se konala akce MS Fest. S překvapivým množstvím přednášejících z Brna, konkrétně pět. Někoho, z této bandy napadlo zeptat se MS, jestli by nebylo možné uhradit nějaké ubytování, neboť akce začínala v 9 ráno, kluci od serverů měli tři servery, takže i když nebyl (myslím) nikdo první, stejně to chtělo přípravu. Tedy to znamenalo určitě před 6 vyjet z Brna (a mít čas všechny posbírat) – pro geeky kritický čas. A MS souhlasil. Pozn.: MS Fest je organizován MSPs (Microsoft Student Partners), hlavně z MFF UK, nikoli MS, ten pouze přispívá.

Jako ubytování byl zajištěn přímo od MS „Hostel Strahov“, což jsou napřímo řečeno koleje. Po zběžném obhlédnutí obrázku nic nevypadalo hrozivě, tak proč ne. Ovšem páteční příjezd kolem 11 večerní se rázem ukázal jako krásné prozření. Fotky dostupné na internetu byly pravděpodobně byt správce nebo tak něco. Blok 12, který nám byl přidělen, nabízel komfortní dvoulůžáky se sociálním zařízením na chodbě, pečlivě vybraným smradem a matracemi, na které se většina z nás bála položit i tašku s notebookem (nicméně povlečené, včetně mýdla a ručníku na polštáři ). Nedostupnost sociálního zařízení na pokoji, poměrně právem, rozlítila kolegu Petra Kaletu, neb on již den před tím absolvoval večerní předávání Křišťálové lupy a měl už jednu noc mimo domácí postel za sebou. Matrace poněkud nevyhovovali některým velmi (mě), jiným méně. A smrad otravoval všechny.

Po vzájemné dohodě jsme se rozhodli „apartmány“ opustit a najít něco za více než „dvěstěpade“ na osobu a rozumně se vyspat. Bohužel najít v předvánoční čas v pátek po 11 hodině v Praze volný hotel není tak jednoduché. Po asi 60 telefonátech (fakticky já a Kamil Roman jsme téměř konstantně jeden hledal a druhý telefonoval), kdy některé byly přímo vyprodané, jiné údajně taky, i když spíše to vypadalo, že takto pozdě nechtějí vyplňovat „papíry“, jsme uznali, že najít hotel ve tři ráno je fajn, ale jaksi postrádá ideu rozumného vyspání. Chtělo to plán B. Trn z paty nám vytrhl Michal Bláha, resp. jeho devmasterovská kancelář. S jeho svolením jsme v kanceláři strávili noc s hromadou energetických nápojů, baget a trochou spánku. No s tím spánkem to nebylo tak žhavé, ale aspoň byla legrace. Tímto bych mu chtěl za nás všechny poděkovat, za jeho dobrý skutek.

Ranní startovací kofein a mohli jsme začít. Večerní D1 jsme přežili všichni ve zdraví, neusnul jsem. Poučení? Pro příště nenavštěvovat „Hostel Strahov“ a nebo si zajistit něco sám. I v tomto čase v Praze (v předstihu) se za přibližně dvojnásobek „naší“ ceny dá najít útulný hotel nedaleko centra včetně snídaně.

Photos from FBCon 09 München

Starter for (but not only) morning:

Holger Klemt:

Stefan Heymann doing the same as me:

Dmitry Yemanov:

Vlad Khorsun:

Roman Rokytskyy:

In between sessions:

During session:

In between sessions:

Everybody is solving problems during conference:

Talking about (not only) Firebird in hallways:

FBCon 09 – “live” feed

The conference is about to start. I’ll write here more and more from it, read it top to bottom.

• It’s  8:25, conference rooms are getting the last polish. You can also deduct, that I successfully found the place.
• The conference is held in Bauzentrum in München. There’s a lot of stuff for people who are building houses etc. in hallways. I like it.
• Session from Dmitry. Good for people asking about limitations and features, why are/aren’t there. The final statement is that Firebird Project isn’t trying to implement all features from Oracle, MS SQL Server, PostgreSQL, … But project is definitely open to good ideas from other projects. And no experiments with features.
• The trace and audit session from Vlad just finished. I like this new feature, but I was not paying attention to during development, so this was a nice summary of my shattered knowledge. But what I don’t like is the configuration file format – mix of XML and standard text config file. And same for output, it’s not some kind of “computer ready” format, like i.e. again XML, it’s just a text, which will be for people harder to parse – but Thomas Steinmaurer already created one application. However the API is open, so probably sooner or later, I hope, somebody will create plugin with this output (and maybe also one for putting the content into database – what about MS SQL and using Analysis Services? )
• After these sessions it was Holger’s turn. About the replication of databases. It was interesting to see the different approach based on creating the actual query executed from inside the trigger. Sure it has some limitations and we found some also during the session, but if you’re OK with the way how it works, it’s a good and easy-to-implement solution. But I think, just because I rather wanna to have more “based on values rather than on creating commands” approach to the synchronization/replication I would probably go in a different direction.
• After this session was my session – the PocketPC and Firebird stuff. It was, sure, the best topic of the day , and because describing own presentation is weird, I would just skip it and hand you to the recording which will be available, for sure.
• The final session was a all-hands-session about the Firebird and performance. There’s nothing special to write about it, because everybody put his/her input it was better to be there than not.
• And maybe the most important part was the city sightseeing and dinner during the evening. These “after-events” are great opprotunity to ask anybody you choose about your problem or give an interesting feedback, hence if you’re not here, you’re definitely missing something.

Day 2 is ready. Everybody fresh and relaxed . Weather in München is nice.

• The first session today was from Vlad about mainly some MS C++ runtime issues with recent changes in WinXP, Vista and Win7. If you were deploying the server in the meantime (or you’re using older (sub)versions) it was definitely worth listening. The current versions of Firebird server have not these issues, because it was successfully solved.
• Following session was from Alex about new protocol features, mainly in 2.5. As a provider writer I was a nice overview of what I will need to do in next couple of months to catch up with server. Also if you wanna to use some brand new features, this session was a good opportunity to see what’s going on inside and what you can do (i.e. if you components are not supporting all options).
• If you’re reading this, you missed my presentation, which was the next in schedule. Again I’ll skip any description.
• Session finished right now was Holger’s about backup and restore. Because I saw last presentation from Ivan Prenosil last year about (I think) 10 ways of doing backup I was not expecting something new. But in fact there was something new. The IBExpert except the IBExpert itself has a really nice set of tools, like a scheduler for backup & restore which you can very easily plug into your environment and use it for almost hot backup of your database on different server. Similarly for dealing with metadata changes and pumping data out and in.
• The final session from regular speaker was Dmitry’s about the lock manager. To be honest I was never paying to much attention to fb_lock_print utility and I had only a very limited knowledge about it. But this presentation, especially demos, widened my knowledge little bit and I know, at least, what useful information I can find there, and if I’ll not forgot all stuff also how to use these. And seeing what’s going on inside the lock manager also helps understanding the internals.
• Really the last session of the day was continuation of talking about improving performance of Firebird (itself or tools) and sharing and exchanging the information. Because everybody was contributing with (but mainly Holger) own pieces, it was really great ending of the day.

And here we’re. The last day of conference. Everybody is looking little bit exhausted, but I’m sure we all are gonna to survive no matter what.

• First session of the day, was classical session about “what we can expect in next development and in next year”, held by Dmitry. It was a nice overview what’s going to happen and if you’re not a member of devel and/or architect list (or you’re not reading it often) also nice summary.
• Then the Vlad came in with new SQL features in Firebird 2.5. As I like a 2.5 a lot and I’m using it for more than a year, I was more or less familiar with these features (although I’m using only few of these). So if you’re too lazy to read release notes for betas and RCs, this session was surely good for you.
• Before the lunch Alex had session about security. I liked the small recap of the history of security in Firebird and InterBase. Then the walk thru the new features and improvements was really good and exhausting, nice samples. I’m really looking forward to Firebird 3.0 to test all new security, mainly authentication functions. This could also make life easier for i.e. hosting providers offering Firebird.
• Once again (and for last this year) skipping my session. (BTW I realized that even if you’re reading this text, there’s change, that you’ve seen my presentation, so my yesterdays statement wasn’t completely correct.)
• The session about the BI tools and Firebird from Roman was really nice. My focus is mainly in OLTP, and I’m looking to OLAP world only little bit, and this was a really nice for me to see also the other side of some problems and see, for me unknown, tools and what is and what is not possible and how hard or easy (desining some transformation looked really easy and quick, at a first sigh).
• Following session was from Roman too. Simply about the Java driver and using it. It was really nice to see how it works in Java world and what problems they’re facing and comparing these in my head with .NET world problems. The example of Hibernate was nice too, as it’s a similar tool to Entity Framework and “father” of NHibernate, so I was able to briefly look to different approach for O/M mappers solution.
• The final (of the day) + final (of the conference) session was simply roundtable, where every developer from different parts of Firebird project (core, .NET, Java, …) introduced little bit the subproject he is working on as well as him/herself. I was expecting people asking little bit too much about these subprojects and maybe sharing ideas and needs, but the discussion didn’t furiously started. A pity.

What to say about this years conference? It was good definitely. I was really enjoying my presence as well as my presentations. So see you next year, maybe face to face maybe reading this feed (if I’ll be doing it).

Entity Framework 4 – MS Fest 2009

Nová verze Entity Frameworku už pomalu klepe na dveře a proto není od věci podívat se, co nového nabídne. V rámci přednášky na MS Festu projdu největší změny a vylepšení. Rozhodně je na co se těšit – pokud již EF používáte, tak na ulehčení života a pokud ještě ne, tak na ještě větší lákadla jej použít. A vzhledem k plánované večerní akci bude prostor i pro kuloární diskuze, nejen o EF.

FBCon 2009 München – .NET + Firebird will be there

Next Firebird conference is coming. This year in München, Germany. I’ve never been in München though it’s pretty close to Czech Rep. thus I’m looking forward.

You can find info about conference at firebird-conference.com. I’ll be speaking there too, hence if you’re interested in Firebird and .NET you should definitely come. Every day I have one session. I’ll be covering new (2.5+) protocol implementation in .NET client for Firebird 2.1, Entity Framework support (also new in 2.5) and finally you’ll see how to create Windows phone (formely PocketPC, …) application and accessing Firebird database.

And the conference will be also great place to meet people you know from list etc. and talk face to face about your Firebird related problems, challenges and solutions. If you have any specific need to show (related to my three sessions) feel free to drop line in comments.

Firebird Developers’ Day 2009 :(

Možná jste si všimli, že jste si nevšimli žádné upoutávky na letošní Firebird Developers‘ Day. Není to chyba na vašem přijímači. Zatím žádné takové oznámení nebylo.

Popravdě, letos to s Firebird Developers‘ Day vypadá špatně. Ačkoli stále tvrdím, že “krize” je do jisté úrovně vyšroubovaná médii, asi zde v druhotné úrovni zasáhla. Jak jistě víte, Firebird Developers‘ Day je konference, která je zdarma, proto veškeré náklady musíme pokrýt ze sponzorských darů. Bohužel letos, jedna z hlavních úlev, kterou jsme měli – sál Věž na pražském Albertově není letos dostupný. A náklady na libovolné komerční prezentační místo jsou pro Firebird Developers‘ Day astronomické.

Zatím se nevzdáváme, je možné, že se něco podaří najít. Nicméně stále více začínáme uvažovat o přesunutí Firebird Developers‘ Day na jarní termín a výběr malého vstupného, které by pomohlo problémy s náklady vyřešit. Osobně si myslím, že konference je skvělou možností setkat se s lidmi z oboru a vyslechnout si (doufejme) zajímavá témata z různých koutů Firebirdu a proto by nemuselo být např. 200 korun dramatických pro návštěvníka a přitom by rapidně pomohlo konferenci.

Není to dobrá zpráva, ale nic není ztraceno. Tak jako tak, rád bych slyšel vaše názory na zavedení rozumného vstupného. Je to nepřekonatelný problém?

Firebird Developers’ Day 2008

Podobně jako minulý rok, i letos jsme se rozhodli uspořádat Firebird Developers’ Day. Loni místnost trochu přetékala, takže doporučuju registrovat včas.

Níže je oficiální program.

Konference Firebird Developers’ Day 2008 se uskuteční 16. října 2008 na pražské Přírodovědecké fakultě Univerzity Karlovy, Albertov 6, v sále označovaném jako Věž. K dispozici bude v den konání konference navigace.

Registrace začíná v 10.00 (začátek jsme posunuli, abychom vyšli vstříc mimopražským účastníkům) a vstup je zcela zdarma, podmínkou je pouze registrace. Budete-li mít jakékoli problémy s registračním formulářem, kontaktujte nás, prosím, na adrese fdd2008reg@dbsvet.cz.

Počet míst je omezen, proto doporučujeme v případě zájmu zaregistrovat se co nejdříve. Celý program je v českém jazyce. Každý účastník navíc obdrží hodnotnou databázovou publikaci z produkce společnosti Computer Press (ta o Firebirdu a InterBase od Pavla Císaře asi na všechny nevyjde, ale budou k dispozici stejně kvalitní).

Po vlastním programu bude následovat neformální setkání přednášejících a účastníků ve vhodném restauračním zařízení.

Firebird Developers’ Day 2007

Úplně bych na to při všem tom shonu zapomněl.

Rozhodli jsme se uspořádat jednodenní konferenci věnovanou problematice vývoje databázových aplikací za využití databázové platformy Firebird. Na základě vašeho hlasování se Firebird Developers’ Day 2007 uskuteční v Praze první listopadový den. A je opravdu na co se těšit.

Konference Firebird Developers’ Day 2007 se uskuteční 1. listopadu 2007 na pražské Přírodovědecké fakultě Univerzity Karlovy, Albertov 6, v sále označovaném jako Věž. K dispozici bude v den konání konference navigace.

Registrace začíná v 10.30 a vstup je zcela zdarma, podmínkou je pouze registrace. Budete-li mít jakékoli problémy s registračním formulářem, kontaktujte nás, prosím, na adrese fdd2007reg@dbsvet.cz. Počet míst je omezen, proto doporučujeme v případě zájmu zaregistrovat se co nejdříve. Celý program je v českém jazyce.

Program:

• 10:30 – 11:00 Registrace
• 11:00 – 11:05 Zahájení a úvodní slova
• 11:05 – 11:35 Co nového okolo Firebirdu? [Jiří Činčura, nezávislý IT specialista]
• 11:40 – 12:25 Optimalizace počítání řádků [Ivan Přenosil, nezávislý IT specialista]
• 12:30 – 13:15 Základy instalace a optimalizace [Slavomír Skopalik, Elekt Labs]
• 13:15 – 13:30 Přestávka
• 13:30 – 14:15 .NET Framework a Firebird (Firebird ADO.NET Data Provider) [Jiří Činčura, nezávislý IT specialista]
• 14:20 – 15:00 Využití optimalizátoru v praxi [Pavel Císař, IBPhoenix]
• 15:00 – 15:15 Přestávka
• 15:15 – 15:40 Jak realizovat prostorová data nad Firebirdem? [Lukáš Brůha, KAGK]
• 15:45 – 16:15 Slon nebo pták ohnivák? [Zdeněk Kotala, Sun Microsystems]
• 16:15 – 16:20 Zakončení