Re: What's a good tool for Stored Procedure/ Package development?

Let me just tell you what we use here. It works for us. Your mileage may vary. Comments embedded.

Don Chambers wrote:
> What development tools do you use to create Oracle Packages?
>
> We are currently using Oracle Enterprise manager but this is not a
> good tool for team development. With Enterprise manager you are
> connected to the database and actually editing the code in the
> database.

I will probably get blasted with flames for saying this ... but here goes: IMHO, Oracle is not very good at producing developer tools. They make a great database, but I've always gone after 3rd party tools.

> This causes several problems:
> There is no source control or version control.
> With several developers creating and editing packages it's easy to
> accidently edit the wrong package. If this happens there is no way to
> undo the changes.
> We can't easily lock down completed scripts. Each devleoper does
> not have an individual account.
>

We use CVS and WinCVS (OpenSource). It's nice because multiple developers can work on any module (unlike MS VSS or others where you check out/in/lock code). When they check in their module, CVS asks if they want to merge (or discard) their changes with anyone else who modified the same module.

> Our process is to frequently update scripts (under source control)
> that are exactly the same as those in the database. Being a manual
> process we have lots of problems keeping the scripts in sync with the
> database.
>

Well for this, we use a human ... configuration management is a tough discipline to automate. You can have CVS "mark" a given "release" so it's a wee bit easier on our CM person.

> An additional problem is that when a change is required its very
> tempting to make the change directly to the database with the INTENT
> to updating the scripts. If the developer forgets to update the
> script we are out of sync.
>
> It would be great is we had a development environment that works off
> the file system with a way to sync with the database. When just using
> a text editor you can't 'compile' on the fly to ensure your syntax is
> correct.
>

Unfortunately, this is a "training" issue. You can hire thugs who break the knees of any developer who is tempted to make changes directly to the database. :)

> Does anyone know of a product with syntax highlighting and integrated
> compile that actually uses the fiels system to store your scritps?
>

We use EditPlus. It has configuration files that allow you to specify color codes to apply to specific "keywords". It comes with a lot of pre-configured files, but I had to make up my own for SQL and PL/SQL. But for our developers, Java was already configured. I like the color coding because it allows me to see when I make a typo ... if the text remains black when I think I'm typing a command, I'll know as soon as I press the spacebar or Enter key (don't know if the same holds true for those people who *hit* their spacebar or Enter key).

We also use TOAD or Benthic Golden to write/compile/test SQL or PL/SQL.

> Don
>
Received on Thu Oct 24 2002 - 11:56:04 CDT