SIL LSDev Linux Development

David asked, “I’m curious to know why Firebird has been chosen as a database engine [for FieldWorks] out of the many other RDBMSs out there, such as MySQL.”

I get this question from time to time, especially when I go to our Computer Technical Conference (CTC), which comes around every two years.  It is a fair question, and since CTC is just a month away, I’m taking the opportunity to remember why we did what we did. I had to ask the people that made the decision, because I had a hard time remembering. It’s been a few years.

FieldWorks started out as a Smalltalk project. When the Smalltalk vendor went under (as I have heard), someone mapped the object data to SQL Server. This was SQL Server 7.0, I think, back before the turn of the century. (Literally.) We have since upgraded to SQL Server 2000, then 2005. (We don’t have any plans currently to move to 2008.) The application code was ported to C++, then newer code was done in C#. You’ve seen various entries from Mark and others about porting that.

I have made at least two studies over the years about which RDBMS to port to. I’m not sure MySQL even existed during the first study, but I know it wasn’t mature enough to do what we wanted at the second study. By the time MySQL had matured–how much may still be a matter for debate–we had already had work underway porting to Firebird.

At one time I had recommended we go with PostgreSQL, and we did head in that direction for a while. However, PostgreSQL needed Cygwin at the time, and Firebird already had a native Windows implementation. Also in Firebird’s favor was the fact that it could be embedded into the application, and this has always had a strong pull for some on the team. Also, it was thought that it would be easier to port the SQL that SQL Server uses to Firebird than it would be to port it to PostgreSQL. Finally, we had a volunteer who knew Firebird and was able to give a significant amount of time. We are in fact indebted to him for laying the foundation of the database port to Firebird.

So the team dropped PostrgeSQL in favor of Firebird.

We have looked at object-oriented datababses as well. None were open source during most of time we made our decisions. We have looked db4objects, but have decided to continue with Firebird for now. Perhaps the biggest reason is that the jump to another SQL RDBMS has already shown to be difficult. Jumping to an object-oriented database would be compound the difficulty.

We have tens of thousands of lines of SQL code for FieldWorks now. Most of it is now ported to Firebird. We still need to put it through unit tests and regression testing.

Our team’s main focus has been to port the SIL FieldWorks suite of translation and linguistic programs from Windows to Linux.

We’ve ported the core C++ parts which are the foundation of all the FieldWorks applications. A big part of the remaining work is in C# to get Translation Editor and Language Explorer to build and run in Linux.

But tackling Translation Editor would be quite a big step and open up a lot of difficulties all at once. So first we’re working to port WorldPad. Although WorldPad won’t be as widely used as Translation Editor, our work on WorldPad is a stepping stone on the way to completing the Translation Editor because many pieces of WorldPad are shared by Translation Editor. And completing the Translation Editor will be easier if we first work on WorldPad.

Because WorldPad is older than Translation Editor, we’ve first changed some of the underlying technology to put us in a better position to transfer our work to Translation Editor. WorldPad in Windows is a C++ application wrapping views, a library in the FieldWorks code that allows fast display and editing of writing systems with complex scripts and other unique features required by minority language writing systems.

We’re writing another WorldPad, WorldPadGTK, using C# and embedded the view in a GTK window. WorldPad in Linux will be a C# GTK application wrapping views.