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I'm going to give a lot of credit to April for this, and say the title is not click-bait. Long before sqlite, or CouchBase, there was SQL Anywhere. And SQL An

I'm going to give a lot of credit to April for this, and say the title is not click-bait. Long before sqlite, or CouchBase, there was SQL Anywhere. And SQL Anywhere had something in the 90's that's still rare even today - hands-off built-in production-ready replication. (MySQL struggled for a decade to ship reliable replication after Yahoo paid them $40k for the original statement-based replication, and Postgres still doesn't have a great story out of the box.) It's that multi-source production-ready replication that April shone a spotlight on that made Sybase worth $5.8 billion when it was sold to SAP. https://www.zdnet.com/article/sap-acquires-sybase-for-5-8-billion-but-why/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/sap-acquires-sybase-for-5-8-bi... So kudos to April for finding a huge diamond in the rough. I've been to lectures on SQL Anywhere, but I hope some day to use it in a project. It's a killer embedded database. Source: DBA.

icedchai 6y ago
I worked on some systems in the 90's that used Sybase SQL Server (AKA Adaptive Server Enterprise, not the Anywhere version.) Maybe "Anywhere" is okay, but you'd be laughed at if you suggested using Sybase SQL for a project these days. It's legacy tech.
- projektfu 6y ago
  SQL Anywhere is also legacy tech, but so is MySQL 5.x and lots of other established stuff. Sybase SQL Server was a real contender for a long time and IIRC shares a lineage with Microsoft SQL Server. All the major SQL vendors maintain a huge legacy of design dead ends that they have to continue supporting because applications were built when they were the next big thing. I used this software in its prime back in ‘97 and it was quite clever. It had none of the problems of its main competitor, Microsoft Jet (Access). MSDE was still a few years away. Plus, it was cross platform, so us Microsoft haters could get behind it, even if we felt forced to develop for the MS platform.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > Sybase SQL for a project these days. It's legacy tech. 1) SQL Anywhere is not "Sybase SQL." Different products, with SQL Anywhere being an embedded database that can run on a smartphone and replicate bidirectionally to other masters. Not many alternatives, even in 2020. 2) Legacy tech - when you care about your data, accept nothing less. Fun fact: the #1 most popular and regarded RDBMS for the past few years is considered to be MySQL, and it was the key technology that powered both Web 1.0 and 2.0. If that's legacy, I want more legacy. Source: DBA.
  - icedchai 6y ago
    Yes, I know they are different products. Early on, MySQL was known for anything but caring about your data. I've been using it since the 90's. Without "strict" mode, fields would be truncated and data types would be silently converted. Never mind the <5.x days where MyISAM was the default table type.
projektfu 6y ago
I’d say the main contemporary competitors were Interbase (Firebird) and Jet. Jet couldn’t safely support a multithreaded program, it had to run in an “apartment” and communicate through a message loop. I didn’t play with Interbase at the time but it was preferred by Borland devs. But I enjoyed using SQL Anywhere and found it very full featured for such a small engine.

icedchai 6y ago

I worked on some systems in the 90's that used Sybase SQL Server (AKA Adaptive Server Enterprise, not the Anywhere version.) Maybe "Anywhere" is okay, but you'd be laughed at if you suggested using Sybase SQL for a project these days. It's legacy tech.

projektfu 6y ago
SQL Anywhere is also legacy tech, but so is MySQL 5.x and lots of other established stuff. Sybase SQL Server was a real contender for a long time and IIRC shares a lineage with Microsoft SQL Server. All the major SQL vendors maintain a huge legacy of design dead ends that they have to continue supporting because applications were built when they were the next big thing. I used this software in its prime back in ‘97 and it was quite clever. It had none of the problems of its main competitor, Microsoft Jet (Access). MSDE was still a few years away. Plus, it was cross platform, so us Microsoft haters could get behind it, even if we felt forced to develop for the MS platform.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> Sybase SQL for a project these days. It's legacy tech. 1) SQL Anywhere is not "Sybase SQL." Different products, with SQL Anywhere being an embedded database that can run on a smartphone and replicate bidirectionally to other masters. Not many alternatives, even in 2020. 2) Legacy tech - when you care about your data, accept nothing less. Fun fact: the #1 most popular and regarded RDBMS for the past few years is considered to be MySQL, and it was the key technology that powered both Web 1.0 and 2.0. If that's legacy, I want more legacy. Source: DBA.
- icedchai 6y ago
  Yes, I know they are different products. Early on, MySQL was known for anything but caring about your data. I've been using it since the 90's. Without "strict" mode, fields would be truncated and data types would be silently converted. Never mind the <5.x days where MyISAM was the default table type.

projektfu 6y ago

I’d say the main contemporary competitors were Interbase (Firebird) and Jet. Jet couldn’t safely support a multithreaded program, it had to run in an “apartment” and communicate through a message loop. I didn’t play with Interbase at the time but it was preferred by Borland devs. But I enjoyed using SQL Anywhere and found it very full featured for such a small engine.