What does the term legacy database mean? [closed] - definition

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I read this term a lot. What exactly is a legacy database? I ask because I had thought it meant an old database like dbase or rdb, but I don't think I'm right.
When looking at RoR or Django and "legacy database" integration, what does legacy database really mean? Is it different than a generic term "legacy database"?

In the general context, it can refer to any of the older database technologies.
In a more specific context, it can refer to a database system that was inherited by a team from previous project owners.

legacy: anything from the past that keeps coming around to haunt you.

A legacy database is generally something that you will have to inherit and base some of your design decisions around. Most companies that put out work may already have some other (usually horrible) solution and you need to give them a bigger and better product...
BUT
It has to work with all of their old legacy data. The company is not going to want to manage two different applications just so they can keep all their old records. You will need to develop your solution to be able to migrate the data from the legacy system over into your system. This can have a massive impact on the overall design of the new database, because it cannot stray too far from the previous without introducing a lot of problems in terms of data integrity.

It's usually derogatory in my experience:
Something no-one wants to touch in case it breaks
Databases that can't be maintained (say that SQL 6.5 box lying around)
Someone else's badly designed and implemented database
Something that someone is trying to replace
Supported by the 93 year old wierdo
If it's in-use but still has maintenance or development activities, it can't be legacy...
Edit:
Given the age of the SQL language and the RDBMS, everything is legacy (including my new system due next year) compared to the software listed. At what point does Ruby turn legacy from the database perspective..?

We mostly use the term 'legacy database' as a db schema we can not 'easily' modify without breaking other software/systems using this schema.

this sums it up pretty well.
[edit] Broken link. Here's the quote from FOLDOC:
Legacy System -- A computer system or application program which continues to be used because of the cost of replacing or redesigning it and often despite its poor competitiveness and compatibility with modern equivalents. The implication is that the system is large, monolithic and difficult to modify.
If legacy software only runs on antiquated hardware the cost of maintaining this may eventually outweigh the cost of replacing both the software and hardware unless some form of emulation or backward compatibility allows the software to run on new hardware.

Flat file, hierarchy, and network databases are usually referred as legacy databases. They represent the ways people used to organize information in prehistoric times — about 30 years ago.

Legacy is used to denote the old thing. legacy database is something which continues to be used because of it cost of replacing and redesigning it.

In general context refers to old code inherited. Tipycally cobol code.
It is used for code which it is still used for historcal reasons.
It applies also for DB schemas

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Database documentation and reverse engineering [closed]

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I know this question has been asked in various forms over and over again but I cannot find a single complete answer and I believe it is a general problem in the RDBMS/data area and industry. To explain the problem I will tell you a short (and maybe boring) story!
The Story
"I have a friend" who works in A company that uses 100+ systems. The scale and size of these systems vary from full-blown ITIL to custom/in-house, single purpose, LAMP/SQLite/CSV-based solutions. The vast majority of these systems, at one point or another use a database/data-store... Big-data has now become a trend, and A company though it is a very good idea to keep (or log) historical data from all systems forever! For that reason they have built a "warehouse". My friend is responsible for writing software that will do the analysis on some of this data ... however, he is kinda confused. There are thousands of tables in that warehouse containing data from the beginning of time (1970s I think :)).
The Problem
[Since I started telling you about this guy, I should probably continue]
My friend is very upset because of the lack of documentation in that warehouse. It seems that no-one knows what is what?! Few of the problems he faces (and I quote):
Man, some fields are constants... they have a special meaning to the application but I have no way of knowing? But that is OK... cause some other fields are bit-masks! Different bit values in the field have different meaning!
and he continues...
That's not all... these are the easy cases you know... Since we have data from multiple systems, we end up with a situation where different systems refer to the same thing in a different way... how can I explain it to you... for example, a network device has an FQDN, however some systems treat it as the primary key, some others don't and instead they allocate an auto-increment integer value, which in turn they use for foreign keys (you know... referencing this device).
and he can go on forever!
The Question
[Yes, it is one question]
He says:
We have come a long way regarding documentation in the software world... we have started with documents, moved to wikis and concluded to inline docblocks serving both as parameter/signature documentation and as wiki! We can auto-generate documentation, clear enough that a person in the other hemisphere and side of this world can easily follow!
and he continues:
... in the data side of things, we also had major achievements! Storage methods, serialization, transmission and data analysis techniques have evolved tremendously... We have also managed to map database tables into objects and in some cases we can even represent relationships!
So why the frell don't we have a standard method/technique of documenting our data structures in an RDBMS?
... he concluded :)
Enough with my friend, so my comments:
I know about comments on fields in various systems, but that is usually enough for a "deprecated" and not for an explanation
Updating a wiki or even worse a document, every time you release a database patch is not a solution... that patch should contain the relevant documentation!
ER diagrams can be easily generated based on the schema information, however this is not the easiest form of documentation to read... for anything more than 10 tables!
There is the saying (please comment if you know who said this! - respect)
Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing
Why SQL doesn't provide the means to any?
Any kind of documentation would get stalled if not maintained.
Also, the SQL world provides all kind possibilities to document things:
comments in SQL files
comments in columns/tables metadata
as you said - E/R diagrams
the classic way of documenting stuff - docs and wikis
good discipline in adhering to an intuitive naming scheme for the things in DB - I think this should be the standard
We have all the tools we need, we just have to convince our managers to let us write the docs (lol)

In Scrum, how do vertical slices work with database scemas? [closed]

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I've just finished two days of agile/scrum coaching at work which was great. I'm a a novice to professional programming so I needed it. However, I'm struggling very much with the notion of vertical slicing. In particular I cannot see how a database schema can emerge from several developers working separately across all development tiers (front middle and back)? Designing the database schema all in one go is called horizontal slicing and it's considered a no-no. I'm familiar with object relational mapping - slightly - from having worked with frameworks like Grails. But again, I still designed the schema first and worked from there.
To be clear, I am not arguing against the case for agile/scrum/vertical slicing, rather I am asking how it is possible? - in particular when it comes the mapping of objects the the database schema, how can this be done by several developers in tandem and not from the beginning?
This article which i really like seems to - if i've read it correctly - suggest that the database schema should be designed in the spring planning stage before any user stories are implemented.http://www.vertabelo.com/blog/notes-from-the-lab/data-modeling-in-agile-development-one-data-modelers-experience
The idea of a vertical slice is that you do the minimum amount needed to deliver some functionality.
Now it could be that the minimum amount of database design you need to do for the first story is the complete schema. But I think that is unlikely.
For example, to get the first bit of functionality working, do you need the tables related to authentication? What about the tables that do auditing? Maybe some parts of the schema are not related to certain functionality. Say you have a shopping basket application and one aspect of the schema relates to customer's saving their favourite look-and-feel. Could that part of the schema be left until the corresponding story is started?
If you have several developers following this approach then it is going to require a lot of conversation and coordination. Continuous integration of the database schema can really help. So as a developer makes changes to the schema regression tests are run to ensure it hasn't interfered with the other developers work.
This post explains it pretty well: http://blogs.adobe.com/agile/2013/09/27/splitting-stories-into-small-vertical-slices/
You do not necessarily have to have different people working on each piece of the vertical slice. It is more about breaking each part into smaller pieces to achieve incremental results.
From the above article:
Each slice is comprised of any work needed to be done in an architectural layer as well as any testing and integration that may need to be done to make it ready to release.

What is MAGIC programming language? Which other language is closest in syntax? [closed]

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I have recently heard about Magic programming language from several sources and didn't recall ever hearing about it before. It was mentioned that it is a programming language from Israel.
I did some googling and couldn't find much information about it. I couldn't find any code examples, and wikipedia didn't have any information on it either.
I think this is the site for it http://www.magicsoftware.com/en/products/?catID=70 though I am not sure, as it mentions uniPaaS instead of magic. However other material on the site indicates that this is the new name for it.
I was interested in learning more about it from it's practitioners, rather than the company. I saw several claims on the internet that it provided really fast application development, similar to claims made by RoR proponents when it came out.
How does it compare to VB?
Is it still a better RAD tool than current .net or mvc frameworks like django, ror ...etc?
How hard is it to learn?
If you can post some sample code it would be most helpful as well.
Could this site be it? Though it links back to the page above.
You're right my friend, Magic is the original name of the "programming language", nowadays is called UniPaaS (Uni Platform as a Service), I use it to develop some business application. Maybe is the fastest way to create an applications(data manipulation), you can create apps in just a few days, but like everything in life has its own drawbacks:
it's very weird so that makes it
difficult to learn.
you do not have all the control of what's happening in the background
and you have to pay a lot for licensing (servers,clients, etc)
If you are interested in learning this, you can download a "free" version of the software that only works with sqlite databases called UniPaaS Jet.
Magic Language is as it’s called today uniPaaS, it used to be Magic than eDeveloper and now uniPaaS as PachinSV menchend before.
uniPaaS is an application platform enabling enterprises, independent software vendors (ISVs) and system integrators (SIs) to more successfully build and deploy business applications.
You can download the free version of uniPaaS Jet here: http://web.magicsoftware.com/unipaas-jet-download,
try it yourself and see how easy it is to use.
Magic technology as you descried is a Magic Software Enterprises tool (uniPaaS), you can find more information on:
official website: www.magicsoftware.com/en/products/?catID=70&pageID=55
uniPaaS Jet developer group on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/unipaasJet/
Magic developer zone: devnet.magicsoftware.com/en/unipaas
Let me know if you find the information helpful
Bob
As PachinSV explained, there is a RAD once called Magic, then eDeveloper, now UniPaaS. This RAD is dedicated for database applications. Programming in this RAD does not look like anything else I know, you mostly don't write code as with usual languages, but it is nearly impossible to explain just with words. The applications are interpreted, not compiled.
As PachinSV said, when developing, you must follow UniPaaS' way of doing things. This is probably why so many people never manage to use Magic properly: if you thought like Magic before learning about it, then you will adapt to it easily; but if you have a long and successful experience using other database development tools, then often the Magic paradigm will never become natural to you. The learning curve is quite steep, you must learn a lot of things before being able to write a little application.
Previous versions stored the "code" inside a database table. The last version, UniPaas stores the code in xml files. I could send you an example, if PachinSV does not answer you before. But the files are pretty big: the smallest xml file I have in a test app is 4000 bytes, and any application is made of at least 11 files, an empty application is 7600 bytes. You must also understand that developers never use those files (they are undocumented AFAIK), they are only the storage format used internally by UniPaaS. The only way to use them is to set them up as a UniPaaS application.
I'm still an active MAGIC Developer... This is the old name used and its a completely different paradigm like some of you mentioned. I've been developing it from Magic version 8.x to eDeveloper 9.x to 10.x then renamed to UniPAAS.
The newer version is much easier to use and it is still very RAD in the sense that there is little or no code you write... a lot of the common programming tasks like IO, SQL command...etc is handled by the tool and is transparent ( so even less code to write since we use it in almost all types of applications)... Its mostly an Enterprise tool... you wouldnt use it for small application...
You can download the free version to learn the paradigm... but the enterprise licenses are expensive.. you need both the development tool and the runtime license if you want to deploy... so it can be costly for small scale projects...
I enjoy it personally, especially when you have to do quick proof of concepts or a quick data migration or porting onto any db platform and bridging any existing system through a wide range of gateways they provide with the licensed version.. It is up to date with the commonly used web technology out there...like SOAP, RIA ...
It's more popular in Europe... The HQ in the States is in Irvine... we used to have 2 branches in Canada but it closed down in 2001 .... Visit the Magic User Group on Yahoo... Its a very active forum with lots of cool people who will help you out in your quest...
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/magicu-l/
I Programmed with Magic for 6 years and found it to be a amazingly fast tool, easy to understand if you are a competent database programmmer because all operations are really about data manipulation. It is certainly a niche area develop in and because of this jobs are few and far between. As it is interpreted there are really no bugs to make. It will work with many databases/connections simultaneously but there is a big memory and processing hit.
Drawbacks :
Little control over communications between machines and devices
No mobile API as yet
Niche area so few skilled practitioners or companies willing to invest.
Good Points :
You can say you are a Magician; you can impress people with uber fast apps development (really)
It is easy to understand if you don't have a PHD in Maths
zero programming "bugs" can creep in. What you do is what you get.
Developed in The original Magic PC referred to by several of the above folks.
It is exactly this: FAST, FAST, but expensive and rigid in what it will allow you to do. It works on a tick tack toe like matrix. Dropping in commands into the various sections determines when they are run. The middle column is run indefinitely until you break the cycle. It is like a do Until loop. If you have to do an item once you put it into this infinite loop and end it after one cycle.
The first column procedures are run first, ONCE, before the infinite middle column is run. The 3rd column of commands is run after the infinite cycle, once. It is very efficient and logical once you get over the idea of an infinite loop.
Types can be specified and an associated program to present the type. Then everywhere the type is used all the settings automatically kick in. I like especially that one can write the program and 5 months later change the name of a variable and it is carried throughout the program. In fact the program does not use your name for anything. The internal name of any and all variables is hidden to the end user, so of course it is not a problem to change a name. It takes a minute to write an input program for any table. It takes a minute to write an export/import program for all the data files in the database.
Attaching to a type of database like Btrieve or SQL independent of the program itself.
I stopped using the language because they demand more for the runtime engine than I could charge for the programs I wished to run with it. Bill Gates went the opposite direction. VB is superior in control and being able to drop `10 datagridviews onto the same screen, but development is 10 times slower.
It's niche then is PROOF of concept for a program in a big company or conversion, importing, exporting for a development company. It is good for $25k programs that are database heavy and not going mobile.
uniPaaS, Magic PC
I did some Magic work around 1993. It was a DOS based 4GL that came from Israel. Haven't seen it since.
How does it compare to VB?
It doesn't.
Is it still a better RAD tool than current .net or mvc frameworks like django, ror ...etc?
If you mean "is it more Rapid", then yes, otherwise no.
How hard is it to learn?
About as hard as learning MS Access.
Coincidentally, if you want to get an idea of what it is and how it works, I've found that comparing it to MS Access is handy. It works in much the same way from a user's or developer's perspective. Obviously what happens in the background is vastly different, but if you've ever developed a form in design view in Access, Magic will seem very familiar.
Google tells me there's also MAGIC/L. All I could find about it was this blurb:
A procedural language written in
Forth. Originally ran on Z80's under
CP/M and later available for IBM-PCs
and Sun 3s.
The only Magic programming language that I know about is one used by a company called Meditech. It's a proprietary language derived from MUMPS.
The language is truly miserable - here's a sample.

What features should a new SQL-based Rapid Development tool have? [closed]

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I am interested in developing a new SQL-based RDS which can generate prototype CRUD-oriented 4GL code which can then be easily customized. So I am looking for opinions, suggestions, etc. in what features should a new RDS have?
I have looked at several products. FileMaker is more or less the type of product I'm looking for, but it's not SQL-based. Informix 4GL and 4Js are what comes closest, but the lead time for customizing/debugging seems to take a long time.
Depends on the market you are aiming for. In your place, my first decision would be whether to link it to a specific RDBMS implementation (which would be Oracle, SQL Server or mySQL) or to try to make it flexible to use amongst any of the major databases. The latter would obviously add massively to the complexity (development, testing, support).
The second would be the OS platform. Something that is specific to Windows (or perhaps Windows Vista/7 upwards) or can be used on Linux, OSX etc. 32bit/64bit would also be a consideration here. I'd need to know that it can run on 64-bit Windows 7 at least.
Thirdly, what do you develop your Rapid Development Tool in. Dot Net would pretty much be Windows only. Java or Python offer more choice.
Fourthly, are you making this as a commercial product, or as open source (or both). Bluntly, if I was looking at buying such a tool to develop my XYZ product in, I'd be looking at long-term support. If the tool doesn't have a five-year pedigree of ongoing support, I'd be very hesitant and would only consider it if it came from a company of the likes of Microsoft/IBM/Oracle/Apple with some serious history in the field. And even then I would be skeptical (search on Microsoft's Oslo/Quadrant/SQL Server Modeling).
I'd also be looking for professional tech writers for the documentation.
See the feature list of Oracle Application Express for some good ideas.
I've used a few of these tools and things that come to my mind are:
1/ automatic joining on foreign keys
2/ keeping columns in the same order as the table in the code
3/ dynamic code generation, no separate code generation stage
4/ undo on table changes
5/ prototyping features to enable actual data to be modelled during development
6/ hide column feature
7/ SQL import for those tricky bits
8/ code locking on tricky bits
9/ version control
10/ segmentation into namespaces
11/ Language templates for easy addition of extra code languages
I think going to an intermediate 4gl first would be good and then a second stage to render code in the language of choice would be good.
I hope this is of some use to you, good luck!

How to select an SQL database? [closed]

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We're living in a golden age of databases, with numerous high quality commercial and free databases. This is great, but the downside is there's not a simple obvious choice for someone who needs a database for his next project.
What are the constraints/criteria you use for selecting a database?
How well do the various databases you've used meet those constraints/criteria?
What special features do the databases have?
Which databases do you feel comfortable recommending to others?
etc...
I would think first on what the system requirements are for data access, data security, scalability, performance, disconnected scenarios, data transformation, data sizing.
On the other side, consider also the experience and background of developers, operators, platform administrators.
You should also think on what constraints you have regarding programming languages, operating systems, memory footprint, network bandwidth, hardware.
Last, but not least, you have to think about business issues like budget for licences, support, operation.
After all those considerations you should end up with just a couple of options and the selection should be easier.
In other words, select the technology that suits the best the constraints and needs of your organization and project.
I certainly think that you are right on saying that it is not an obvious choice given the wide number of alternatives, but this is the only way I think you can narrow them to the ones that are really feasible for your project.
My selection criteria (mainly programming centric):
Maintenance: How are updates/hotfixes installed?
Transaction control: How it is implemented
Are Stored Procedures supported?
Can you use exception handling in Stored Procedures?
Costs
As a benefit: Can you use recursion on Stored Procedures? (E.g. in SQL Server 2000 the recursion stops after 32 passes IIRC)
For most people in a corporate environment the choice comes down to "the one we have".
Since you seem to be fortunate enough to have a choice, I'll take a quick run through the questions and maybe pose a few more at the end.
The biggest criterion may be cost. Do you want/are you prepared to pay for your DBMS platform? If not, then Oracle, MS SQL Server, Sybase and others are probably out, although if you're not building a commercial app then there may be some wiggle room. Also, platform - can you run the software on your hardware?
Other dimensions for consideration might include expected number of concurrent connections, transactional vs mostly reads, size, availability and I guess lots of others.
"Special features" are, in the main, to be avoided - in my cynical world-view they're intended to lock you into a platform. So something like Oracle's PL/SQL is a feature that, while powerful (and likely to mean the need for extra CPU power at more licensing cost) is not portable. If you expect extremely high volumes then partitioning may be useful, I suppose.
I have worked with Oracle, MS SQL Server, MySQL, PostreSQL, SQLite and Sybase that I can think of. I'd happily recommend all but Sybase, about which I have some concerns these days (I could easily be wrong, but personally I think the money could be better spent elsewhere) but not all for the same applications.
Ideally, I like to have the warm feeling that it doesn't really matter what DB platform I'm using because I can port easily. With a good abstraction layer between data and business logic, I should be able to develop locally against, say, the excellent SQLite and implement painlessly on, for example, Postgres. With something like ActiveRecord from Rails coupled with a little awareness of things like differences in reserved words, this is almost completely cost-free.
Surely the most compelling factor is the expertise of you or your team...or the pool of resource you are likely to hire in the future. I would tend to go with the grain most of the time, using MySQL in a LAMP team and SQL Server in a MS team, since either of these products is capable of doing everything necessary even in a high-load environment.
The benefits of any other database are going to be marginal compared to the pain of learning how to use it well. The only exception to this, in my opinion, would be in a high-demand environment where:
a. the obvious choice has been tried and is failing
b. the benefits of scaling multiply the marginal benefit to such a degree that it will be worth the cost of using something unexpected.
I would assume the need to hire at least two and preferably three excellent DBAs with long term familiarity with the new database.
And first I would try to hire them for the technology that was failing, because it is more likely to be the way it's used than the technology itself that is causing the problem.
The existing answers are great. It's worth bearing in mind that Oracle now has an XE version of it's 10g database which is available for free and comes with Application Express, a great web based development environment.
It is limited, 4GB HD, 1 GB Ram and uses only one CPU. This is enough to run smaller system though and can be upgraded easily at a later date if necessary. Oracle can be one of the toughest to learn but is also one of the best to have on your CV :-)
I think SQLServer from Microsoft also has a 'starter' type database. Don't discount the commercial products - if you are going to bet your company on a database technology I would rather be using a product from Oracle or Microsoft personally. Thats not to say there is anything wrong with Open Source.
Spend a while evaluating them :-)
Linux, Web Hosted - MySQL (PostreSQL maybe)
Mainstream SME - MS SQL
Big Iron (banking etc) - Oracle
Thinking about anything other than those three is masturbation - any of the other databases becomes a discussion about niche products to solve particular problems that you probably haven't encountered yet. If you choose anything other than the three above you will -
Struggle to find people to work on the project or keep the database going
Struggle to motivate your decision without an academic discussion
Someone will curse you, your ancestors and your lineage a few years down the line - and replace your choice anyway.
Niche databases are not where architectural strides are made - it is technologies like middleware, messaging, cloud services etc where you can afford to (and should) go out on a limb to find good products.