MacNative

If you are like me, you have spent many many hours creating database layouts on legal pads, notebooks, and whiteboards, only to have to recreate the layout again to actually create the layout in the database. This process can consume many hours of additional time in a development project. But thanks to Malcom Hardie we can streamline our SQL database creation process with the use of SQLEditor.

SQLEditor provides the best interface that I have seen to create your database layout in a very visual format. It allows you to build your

tables specifying the column types, linking with foreign keys, and dragging the table layouts around the canvas so that you can easily understand what you were building at a glance when you come back to a project after an extended period.

But the best part comes after the database design is complete, you can export it to a PDF for distribution around the office, send it to a plotter to print a large wall size copy for reference.

But then comes the fun part, after you have made all of your changes to the database layout you can either export the contents directly to a txt file in the SQL dialect of your choice (MySQL, Oracle, Postgresql, etc…) or even connect directly to a database using JDBC drivers and propagate your changes directly to the running database server.

SQLEditor has full support for Mac OS X 10.6 and is ready to run on your Mac Development System.

Although this solution is not freeware or open source, it is an essential tool for every developer who designs or develops database integration strategies. I highly recommend this product and it is well worth the expense to purchase it for the time it will save you. But don’t worry like most software applications it comes with a hassle free 30 day free trial period so you can see how effective it will be in your development workflow.

Here is an extended list of features:

Product Homepage

Every developer knows how important it is to have the right tools. And by having the right tools I mean a text editor. Because ultimately that is all most developers really require to get things done, Developers have been doing it for well over a half century and although the languages and methods for execution have changed, much has remained the same.

For those who are fortunate enough to find themselves doing development on the mac platform, there is an alternative, which although it may not be the newest game on the block, it is one of the best all around. Sissy FauxVelopers need not apply to use this app. It has no build your app with one click buttons. It is designed to take the development experience to the next level for those who like to get their “fingers” dirty and actually do some major textual manipulations.

From the first launch it’s basic simplicity and power are immediately perceptible. It is feature packed enough to quell the pining soul of the most advanced developer, but simple enough to handle basic text document edits. From customizable coloring of the interface (I prefer the “All Hallow’s Eve” scheme) to the elegant line numbering and code folding features in the applications “trough”, this bad boy was built to move mountains and work minor miracles.

With built in support for dozens of predominant document formats, it provides out of the box streamlining of your developer workflow while also allowing you to add your own file format specifications should you happen to be crafty enough to have come up with your own file formats and specifications.

Additionally you can create functions to validate your files layout and formatting right into your file specification. Giving you on the fly access to all the features you want when you are developing.

This great product has seen me through many development projects, and has greatly increased my development capacity through it’s simplistic yet powerful functions.Although this product isn’t free, it is well worth the €39 purchase price, and it comes with a 30 day trial for all parties that may be interested, but not yet committed to the purchase.

Go give it a test spin. All you have to loose is pain and frustration.

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Developers of all kinds that are hunting for a quick and easy way to look up documentation for their coding projects can now be appeased. I just ran across a Development Resource which seems to be a pretty good solution for hunting for development documentation or resources. Go Check it out.

http://www.quickref.org

Apples WWDC 2008 kicked off this week in San Francisco with a bang. Unveiling their new 3G iPhone with an upgraded look and a few new features was pretty cool. But not nearly as cool as the new SDK for the iPhone. The new SDK promises to provide a rich development interface for rapid development on the iPhone. Personally after watching the Keynote I cannot wait to dive in and see what can be created using this new development platform.

Check out the New iPhone

Check out the iPhone SDK

My JavaScript framework of choice is MooTools. MooTools is a very compact, useful, and extensible JavaScript framework. I have used it on several sites that I and my codevelopers have created, I have been impressed by how easy the integration is, the speed of development with MooTools is amazing. It doesn’t carry the bloat that similar frameworks carry with them, ie: Prototype. All in all a very exciting platform to work with.

I look forward to the enhancements that will be made available with the 1.2 release. Exciting.

In later posts I will share and discuss scripts that use/extend the base functionality of MooTools to create some very amazing, usability enhancing, tools and effects.