Even though I am not looking into changing any solution away from a relational database I found the article linked below interesting. You see – it lists some questions/requirements/decisions and then how different database solutions fit.
– http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/6/20/35-use-cases-for-choosing-your-next-nosql-database.html
( There are probably many but I haven’t bothered to do a deep search since I normally have Sqlserver and its tools on my machines. )
I avoid installing query tools on the servers to keep them as clean as possible but sometimes I need to and then there are two that spring to mind.
Microsoft Sql server 2008 management studio express which requires an install.
JAlbaharis Query express which comes as a folder. No installation and no risk of contaminating the server. As is mentioned on the page there is a F/OSS version with more functionality here. The latters seems to in active development at writing time.
Even though I wouldn’t say Management studio has a well thought through user interface it is better than Query express. On the other hand – the source code of the latter is free (someone has already branched it but I haven’t tried the fork yet, written in C#, visual studio and seems to be active)
First time I tried Query express I threw it away since there is a bug that kicks in if you make the new document in the MDI window maximized and then run the query; the splitter between query and result is set to the bottom om the document and it looks like there is no result. Workararound: either run the query first with non-maximized document or simply drag the splitter upwards.
Are there more gratis tools anyone would recommend?
Continuing with the above/earlier I say that even the table to create a many-to-many relationship should have a simple primary key.
E.g.:
Table User_Role
– field UserRoleID PK
– field UserID FK
– field RoleID FK
As long as harddisk space is cheap and a simple PK does not create a performance impact there should be no reason to not have a simple primary key.