Alternatives to SQL Developer
 

Hi,
I am using SQL in a university project which involves Oracle. I need an editor I can use at home but Oracle have an extremely restrictive license, which only allows for its use within the uni. Otherwise I'd have to use APEX which is terrible.

I am looking for an SQL IDE or similar which will let me run the script and test queries which are both in the same script and returns the output without needing to connect to an oracle database which I don't have. I've searched for weeks but all need a database connection, I need a desktop solution similar to SQL Fiddle.

Does anyone please have any suggestions?

Thanks.

There are many IDE's available for working with various databases, with databases being the important part of the equation.

The IDE aside, the _only_ way to test your queries is to run them against your modeled data, which will require a connection to the Oracle database if that is where your data are stored.

If you need to run the queries on a FREE platform, you would be well served to run a MySQL or MariaDB database on your local system, with MySQL Workbench as the IDE. You should be able to export your data from the Oracle database into the MySQL DB easily enough, then run your queries locally.

And you can edit your queries with any plain text editor and run them easily without an IDE, so don't load yourself down with unnecessary baggage.

You should do some online reading on relational data model and relational database to answer many additional questions which are sure to arise.

SQL is not a stand-alone language, it is a language used for querying relational data. Relational data is stored and accessed using SQL via a Relational Database Management System, or RDBMS. Oracle and MySQL are RDBMS's. Your own data model is largely independent of what RDBMS manages it.

Well, if you are looking for something which does not exist, that may be.

But I can hardly imagine how weeks worth of searching would not turn up MySQL or MariaDB and MySQL Workbench as a good workable solution! You might also want to look into PostgreSQL RDBMS, and PHPMyAdmin and PGMyAdmin for web server based development tools.

There are also serverless SQL database managers, SQLite is a great one, also easily available! They store your modeled data in a file. But you may find the queries and data model less directly applicable when you return to the Oracle platform.

Just use MySQL/MariaDB and get on with your project! Either will be always available and easy to install on any Linux distro. ;)

Thanks for your reply, I considered using MySQL but I haven't had much prior experience. I'll have a look at MariaDB I'm not a fan of MySQL's license. Do you think MariaDB is freer than MySQL? I've managed to get through my course using only FLOSS software, I encourage others but they all use Macs while I'm there with my Thinkpad!

Well, MySQL is now owned by Oracle, so I have come to avoid it on that basis. I have little regard for legalese so licenses are an annoying irrelevance for myself, your mileage will vary.

MariaDB is great! It is FREE, virtually 100% drop in replacement for MySQL and better than MySQL is some respects. For most purposes you can consider them identical twins - choose which one you want and run with it!

Many Linux distros now provide MariaDB instead of MySQL, so whatever your distro currently provides would probably be easiest.

Oracle used to have (and may still continue to have) "express editions" matching every regular version. These were free but full featured except except for professional data management tools. Best is to use it since it works with same oracle language and script and would seem to satisfy OK

I had a look at previous versions of the Oracle database software but I know they difficult to run on a Linux system and I don't want a non-FOSS VM to use it. I tried Oracle APEX but it is an awful UI.

I've used MariaDB instead and its worked for what I needed it for, thanks everybody!

I guess it really depends on exactly what your project is, and in what way it actually involves Oracle.

The University should be able to counsel you on the terms of their Oracle license and how it applies to you as a student or staff member.

If you simply need "a relational database" for research work or what-have-you, there are many alternatives other than Oracle. Furthermore, they can ordinarily be accessed through convenient software layers such as iODBC which let you focus more-generally on "queries and databases" instead of exactly which database you are using.

Application express in oracle is different from "express edition".

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/da...iew/index.html

OK

Mysql queries may work quite differently against oracle databases; SQL stands for "Structured Query Language", not "Standard QL".
It's imperative that you know the differences and how to port your mysql / mariadb scripts and queries towards Oracle.

On the other hand, there are some free good databases around, and unless you need the full-fledged capabilities of Oracle, you (or your company, since Oracle licences tend to cost more than a few bucks) may actually be better off with another dbms.

Some free RDMBSes:
- PostgreSQL (www.postgresql.org) (my favorite since 1995, when I started looking for good and free rdbms systems)
- MariaDB (a fork of MySQL when MySQL was bought by Oracle)
- MySQL (it's free, but it's owned by Oracle, so you never know what will happen to that freedom)

And then there are the no-sql databases, which serve quite another purpose; An example would be Couchdb (which I'm currently exploring); A nice explanation can be found here: http://docs.couchdb.org/en/stable/intro/why.html