VistaDB 4.1 Feature List

Yes, VistaDB 4.1 is nearing release.  VistaDB 4.1 will be released before the end of the month.  For the most part this is a drop in replacement of 4.0 for everyone, but the License system has been totally removed. 

There are enhancements in the release though, take a look at the Dynamic Entity Framework model generation capability for Data Builder.  It is a really cool feature for writing LINQ queries within Data Builder.

Source or Binary

Yes, there will be a source release for 4.1 (free to those who have recently purchased the 4.0 Source), and a binary version as an upgrade to current users of 4.0. 

The upgrade price will be 60% off the list, as a minor upgrade fee.  Those who have 3.x can upgrade as well, but the discount is less since they are not running the most recent version.

This license is effectively a $5,000 site license for every user.  Since I seriously doubt anyone will be coming back to buy more licenses after they have an unlocked version. 

License System

The entire licenses.licx system has been removed, and the installer is being modified to not require the Activation Server in order to run.  This is an unlocked dll runtime. 

Subscribers

There are very few subscribers.  If you have a current subscription, then yes this is included for free (honestly, when have I not done that?).

Dynamic Entity Framework Model

In VistaDB 4.1 Data Builder has been changed to allow for dynamic LINQ Queries of a custom built Entity Framework (EF) model for your current database. 

It is a simple EF default generation, one type per table.  There is nothing fancy about the generation, but it gives you a real quick way to write LINQ queries in Data Builder.  This is the same thing as going into Visual Studio and generating an Entity Framework model by just clicking next, next, next.  It is a default model as defined under Visual Studio 2010.

The code generation and dynamic runtime only works with C# (sorry VB guys).  It was on our list to try to get more language support, but we have obviously run out of time.

I also really wanted to get the ability to Visualize the EF model as a part of the query pane, and intellisense.  Neither of those made it in either.  We do have an Entity Model tab next to the query that allows you to see the list of Entity Types in the model.  It makes it easier to see the column names, and their case (since case does matter for their types).

The idea for this feature was to initially allow people to play with EF, without having to go build a big model, write an application to use it, etc.  And one of the things I don’t like in LINQPad is that after I have a good working query then pasting it into my code requires a lot of changes because the default in LINQPad is a context-less model.

Bug Fixes

There are number of bug fixes and code improvements.  CLR Procs have been improved in Data Builder, and some of their capabilities improved internal to the engine.  There are also some more low level strongly typed changes in the engine. 

Dot Net 4 Version of Code (source only)

There is a 100% Dot Net 4 version of the code now as well.  It will only compile under .Net 4, but this will not be part of the binary release.  Only the source code users will get this code.  It is not packaged to handle side by side installation in the GAC, it has not been fully tested, etc, etc.  It is a work in progress to convert the code to .Net 4 native code.  This is one of the things that I was spending time on as well, and will continue in the future if able.  It will probably turn into a VistaDB 5 since a lot of interfaces are going to change in this process. 

The code is currently still 100% file level compatible with the .Net 2 version of the engine, so I decided to include it for source users who want to move to .Net 4.

What’s not included

Sync Provider – no where near production ready.  There are a ton of engine changes made to support it, and they are included.  But there is no way we could ship or release the current providers themselves.

Datatype changes – I am still testing these.  The type changes were all done a while back by another developer, but I have not reviewed his changes in the type system.  If they end up looking safe I will include them, but right now there are a couple big sticking points that would leave them out.  So this is one that is marked “if we have time”. 

There is obviously a deadline involved here that we have to get this done quickly, but I will not release untested or unsafe code.

I will keep pushing as hard as I can, and we will see what else can get done safely.