Skip to content

Category: Database

All posts related to using databases.

Appreciating SQL

Noted recently at the SQLizer blog, the SQL language was first created 43 years ago. And what is remarkable about that is that SQL is still used today. According to the Stack Overflow 2017 developer survey it is the #2 programming language. Not many languages remain in use for such a long period of time. Although we’re happy to also note that Xojo celebrated our 20th anniversary in 2016!

Comments closed

The Ultimate Password Solution

World Password Day brings attention to some simple steps everyone can take to secure their digital life: 1. Create Strong Passwords, 2. Use a different password for each account, and 3. Get a password manager, no, not a post-it note in your desk drawer!

The best password is one that is diffcult to guess. But difficult to guess takes on a new meaning when hackers use computers to do the guessing. Hence, the best password becomes one that would take a computer so long to guess that it’s not practical to do so. That means a long series of random characters and the longer and more random, the better, and a different password for every site you use.

Comments closed

What is Xojo?

2017’s first “What is Xojo?” webinar was well received and there were lots of questions. Rather than include the questions in the video, I’ve included a…

Comments closed

About PostgreSQL Case Sensitivity

I’ve ran into PostgreSQL case sensitivity myself before and I’ve seen it come up on the forums, so I thought it might be a good thing to bring up here.

Sometimes you hear that PostgreSQL is case-insensitive, but it isn’t really. What it actually does is convert your SQL to lowercase by default. So take a look at this SQL:

SELECT FullName FROM Person

This gets converted to:

SELECT fullname FROM person

That is nice if you happen to like to write your queries with mixed casing.

Comments closed

Database Usage with Web Apps

Using databases with web apps is not much different than using them with desktop apps, but there are a few things to keep in mind. The most important thing to note is that a web app allows multiple users. This means you’ll want your database connection to be unique for each user that connects to the web app, rather than global to the app itself (as is common in desktop apps). The simplest way to ensure this is to create the connection to your database in the WebSession.Open event handler, saving a reference to the connection as a property that you add to WebSession.

6 Comments

Xojo Programming Language: 6 Fascinating Facts

Xojo is similar to VB, Java and C#

The Xojo programming language is fully object-oriented and uses an object model that is quite similar to VB, Java and C#. If you are used those languages at all, you’ll be right at home with Xojo.

Available since 1998, Xojo was one of the first languages to use Automatic Reference Counting (ARC), something that other languages such as Swift and Objective-C now use. Xojo is type-safe and fully object-oriented making it easy to learn and use, but it also has advanced features such as namespaces, extension methods, exception handling, introspection, delegates and more.

Comments closed

The Chinook Sample Database

Have you ever needed or wanted a populated sample database with several related tables to play around with? Perhaps you are learning about databases and database design or perhaps you want to try out a new tool such as Xojo but want a pre-build database to start with.

Comments closed