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Show HN: 10 Years to Build a Free SQL Editor

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Re: Show HN: 10 Years to Build a Free SQL Editor

#81

Post by whartung »

PaulHoule wrote: post #12

Yet to find one of these (Microsoft SQL's query editor, Oracle's query editor, DBeaver, pgadmin 4) that I really like. The basic problem I have is that the structure of the typical relational db which uses primary and foreign keys (even if they aren't declared) is a graph. A user interface that lets me pick out individual tables and columns for one little query tab which gets lost in a sea of tabs just doesn’t cut it…

I've put a whole 5 minutes of thought into this over the years, but it's something I've always thought I would like in some kind of DB tool.

Notably, being able to follow relationships easily.

Trivial use case, selecting a bunch of order rows, clicking on the "customer_id" of one of the rows, and it brings up the associated row, following the foreign key. Clicking on something else to open up the dependent tables (like the order detail lines). After a bit of clicking around, you have a subset of the DB ERD (save it has data). Then, maybe, using that as a base, you can start clicking on columns to form up a query, with all of the joins in place.

As I said, 5 minutes of thought, 30,000 ft view. But I've not seen anything like that, perhaps it's just not practical.

Re: Show HN: 10 Years to Build a Free SQL Editor

#82

Post by brsiegel »

RyanHamilton wrote: post #62
hoistbypetard wrote: post #15

Congrats on launching! I haven't gotten very far into it, but here's a little feedback about what it took to get to the point where I could try it out. 1. I'm running MacOS 14.4.1. 2. I downloaded the jar file. 3. I double-clicked the jar file. It wouldn't open. I've seen this before, so I navigated to the jar file, right-clicked it and chose open, and it gave me the option to launch it even though it was unsigned af…

Massive thanks for this. I've opened an issue to ensure I improve this: https://github.com/timeseries/qstudio/issues/54 To be honest I've delayed improving Mac as I don't use the platform myself so I don't know how people usually install java apps on mac. I guess it's time I dove in and properly solved this. With the upcoming windows spyware I may have to move platform anyway.

JavaPackager as you're already using should work, you would just need to build the Mac packages on a Mac build agent. For something more future-proof and performant, GraalVM native images (https://www.graalvm.org/latest/reference-manual/native-image...) seem to be the future of native packaging for JVM applications.

Re: Show HN: 10 Years to Build a Free SQL Editor

#84

Post by SloopJon »

RyanHamilton wrote: post #74
jvalencia wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Cassandra :-/

qStudio allows loading your own .jar file with JDBC drivers: https://www.timestored.com/pulse/help/connections-custom-jdb... In theory Cassandra has a JDBC driver: https://github.com/ing-bank/cassandra-jdbc-wrapper It's not pretty and not seamless but it should work and if it doesn't and I can fix it, I'm happy to help.

I created a Custom JDBC Server connection, but I can't figure out how to specify the driver file. Clicking the Test button offers to download one, but fails with an IndexOutOfBoundsException. I don't see anything relevant in the Settings, and I don't see anything resembling the DBeaver driver manager.

I don't know how to translate that Pulse FAQ to qStudio. FWIW, I'm using Java 11 on macOS 14. I have a single qstudio.jar file.

Re: Show HN: 10 Years to Build a Free SQL Editor

#85

Post by RyanHamilton »

SloopJon wrote: post #84
RyanHamilton wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

qStudio allows loading your own .jar file with JDBC drivers: https://www.timestored.com/pulse/help/connections-custom-jdb... In theory Cassandra has a JDBC driver: https://github.com/ing-bank/cassandra-jdbc-wrapper It's not pretty and not seamless but it should work and if it doesn't and I can fix it, I'm happy to help.

I created a Custom JDBC Server connection, but I can't figure out how to specify the driver file. Clicking the Test button offers to download one, but fails with an IndexOutOfBoundsException. I don't see anything relevant in the Settings, and I don't see anything resembling the DBeaver driver manager. I don't know how to translate that Pulse FAQ to qStudio. FWIW, I'm using Java 11 on macOS 14. I have a single qstudio…

What JDBC driver are you trying? I can try it tomorrow possibly even on mac.

Re: Show HN: 10 Years to Build a Free SQL Editor

#86

Post by progmetaldev »

RyanHamilton wrote: post #60
s1k3s wrote: post #24

I'm impressed by the speed, it's probably the fastest such tool I've ever used. Congrats!

Thanks! I think I'm mostly benefitting from it being so old and hardware has got so much faster.

Perhaps, but you've also resisted rewriting the entire application just to take advantage of the newest GUI frameworks. There's a lot to be said about an application that gets things done, and quickly, regardless of whether it was the initial intention or not. Congrats on the release!

Re: Show HN: 10 Years to Build a Free SQL Editor

#87

Post by progmetaldev »

echan00 wrote: post #20

Honestly, it shouldn't matter whether you took 10 days or 10 yrs. If its good its good.

While you're correct, there's generally a correlation with something that's not only existed for that long, but IN USE for that long. I think that's the bigger selling point. Maybe I only get this idea from going through all comments on HN, I see your comment is from 8 hours ago, and I don't know what comments existed at the time you commented. I apologize if you didn't have much context when making this comment.

Re: Show HN: 10 Years to Build a Free SQL Editor

#88

Post by progmetaldev »

RyanHamilton wrote: post #76
lyu07282 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You host binary blob releases in the qstudio GitHub alongside a License file in the repo indicating apache license. If you didn't open source everything that made up those releases including it's dependencies, you should remove or clarify what exactly is covered by the license to avoid the confusion.

I added the releases at the specific request of 1 large finance firm, a top 3 American bank by size. They requested it as their procurement department trusted downloads from github more than timestored.com. It probably sounds insane to you (or anyone sensible) especially as the downloads are digitally signed but I could write essays on the crazy hoops large firms ask you to jump through to provide software.

It doesn't sound crazy for those of us that have dealt with large firms, especially banking. The issue would be including an Apache license with the binary blob, when that is not the correct license.

I've dealt with extremely customized licenses for businesses (financial) that wanted software built for their use, but also to have the ability to resell the software that was built specifically for them. Not much surprises me anymore when it comes to expectations of legal departments. You just don't want to get into any kind of legal battle in the future over your software. I don't know anything about the size of your business, or who uses your software, but I do know that when it gets ugly and someone is looking for rights to software, you need to have things clearly laid out or you could end up devastated by a company that has funds to keep putting into legal fees that you may not.

I hope that this scenario never plays out, because I think releasing this is something that really adds value to the community that deals with databases. I just don't want to see someone trying to make a living get hurt by a licensing issue. Unfortunately, when it comes to high-end business, it's not so uncommon when things don't go the way your client wishes them to go. Best of luck to you!

Re: Show HN: 10 Years to Build a Free SQL Editor

#89

Post by progmetaldev »

RyanHamilton wrote: post #57
iamleppert wrote: post #44

What's the ROI on building a free SQL editor in 10 years?

Ha Terrible! I don't recommend it at all but it's a great feeling of satisfaction when I walk into a random office and see someone using it. Or more rarely when someone emails thanks.

If this is your passion, keep at it, please! You need to make a living, but not everything needs to be a front-page success story either.

Re: Show HN: 10 Years to Build a Free SQL Editor

#90

Post by ktm5j »

hnlmorg wrote: post #69
RadiozRadioz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think SSH tunnels are exactly the type of thing that should be handled by a different tool. It's a lot of complexity to add to the app, when the app (and any DB client) inherently already supports connecting via an externally managed tunnel. An established tunnel managing program, or just your terminal, would be better at managing tunnels than a tunnel tool tacked onto this app, and the interoperability is already…

No reason why you couldn’t call the ssh binary if it’s available in $PATH. I’ve seen other tools do this too. You’d need to be transparent in your GUI wording that this is forking SSH (in the case of Windows users) but it wouldn’t be an issue for Linux or macOS.

I don't think the guy who you replied to expects anyone to implement their own SSH client to build a tunneling feature. The sensible thing you would do is use a well known library for that.. but that's not any less work than having your program use the SSH binaries to make those features. Honestly it would almost certainly be easier to use a library.
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