Comments on: App Review: SQLEditor

By: Matthew Quinlan

Matthew Quinlan — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:23:16 +0000

This type of tool is also incredibly valuable for LEARNING about data modeling. While I knew the basics from books, it was really ER-win (the grand-daddy of the data modeling space) that taught me the ins/outs of modeling.

When evaluating such tools there are a couple of really important features to consider:

- does the tool support multiple database vendors? (while this may not seem important b/c your website runs XYZ database today… the ability for your tool/skillset to be transferrable for your next gig is invaluable)

- does the tool do reverse-engineering of existing schemas? (and allow foreign key inferences)

- does the tool support views, and sub-types (both complete and incomplete) in the modeling interface?

- can the tool generate ALTER statements so that existing databases can be easily updated (instead of creates)?

One feature I really liked about ER-win was that if I had an existing schema and I made changes to it, ER-Win would actually generate not just the DDL, but also the scripts that migrate the existing data to the new schema. That was amazing!

By: Andrew P. Gurzynski

Andrew P. Gurzynski — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:25:36 +0000

While I am not a Mac user this tool looks very similar to tools similar to many Entity/Relationship modeling tools that currently exist for the Wintel platform.

ER Diagrams are useful for the simple reason that a picture is worth a thousand words. A graphical representation is easier to look at and understand than SQL DDL statements.

It looks like SQLEditor is a tool that allows you to create a graphical representation of your database and then create the SQL DDL (Data Definition Language) statements to create that actual tables in a target database.

Again, I am not very familiar with the Mac environment and am not aware of any similar tools, but I would have to think they exist.

By: PlexXoniC

PlexXoniC — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:35:34 +0000

I really think this could save me a ton of time designing table structures, thanks for the link!

By: ratan

ratan — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:56:50 +0000

A UI tool like SQL editor is always useful. For complex databases the development start from the ER diagrams and a utility which can convert the diagram to the tables is really useful. It can save lots of time, its importance can be really appreciated in time critical development. It has the potential to remove lots of typos that we inherently make.

By: chris t

chris t — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:55:45 +0000

This is a more user friendly application, better than the tools that come from SQL Server.

Though this will likely need to be able to create sql that is specific to the different flavors of SQL: MS SQL Server, MS Access, Foxpro, Sysbase,etc.

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:09:45 +0000

I haven’t previously used SQL Editor, but I am going to explore the idea of doing so now. Thanks!

By: hanawriter

hanawriter — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:05:36 +0000

I’ve used Microsoft Access before to make databases. When the database file becomes too big the program becomes so slow. It is quite easy to learn and use though. SQLEditor seems to be an easy way to transition from Access to mysql.

By: vidula ashok

vidula ashok — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:12:08 +0000

I have studied IBM Mainframe and knows how important SQL is. It is very tedious to write the code without making mistakes. I think SQLEditor could be useful when lots of tables and data are involved.