Hi Alexey...

I currently use the EMS SqlManager software for all my Firebird database administration

I have been using their software for many years for the SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL databases with very few issues.

However, I do have an issue with the Firebird SQL error reporting system in that it still does not narrow down the actual issue when an error is found during compilation of any Firebird SQL code (ie: stored procedures).

Nonetheless, offering a complete DB Administrator for Firebird with the freely available downloadable product would go a long way to gaining Firebird increased popularity.

Though I see Firebird as an excellent database engine on par with all its equivalent engines in the commercial and Open Source sectors, I have been critical in the way that the development team has remained with the Open Source style of marketing that was prevalent in the 1990s when Open Source was just beginning to emerge.  Without more modern mechanisms to interact with the Firebird Community and a lack of professional, subscription based support for companies, Firebird has remained in the backwaters of the technical communities, which in my view is wholly unwarranted given the excellence of this engine.

This reticence on the development team's part may be based on legitimate issues (ie: personal work schedules).  Nonetheless, in reality, how difficult would it be for example to set up a Firebird Forum on one of the freely available forum hosting services such as ProBoards?  Such a technology implementation is fairly standard now with all of the database vendors.

Finally, as I have also written one or two articles on the subject that Firebird is not all that friendly to newcomers to this engine, even technical; professionals with years of experience as I had.  The way in which Firebird implements its SQL is rather alien when compared to the other major database engines.  This is not in anyway to be critical of this implementation but documentation should be available for professionals (and hobbyists) who would like to migrate their databases to Firebird and need to understand the differences between the SQL implementations they have become used to and the way Firebird does it.

For example, my article at the following link will describe some of the issues that people new to Firebird will encounter...  https://blackfalconsoftware.wordpress.com/2018/05/11/the-firebird-database-engine-the-frustrations-of-the-long-distance-database-application-developer/

In closing, I believe that any enhancement to the way that this database engine is promoted, such as a freely available and complete database administration tool, would go a long way to securing Firebird as mainstay engine in the future...

Steve Naidamast

Sr. Software Engineer

blackfalconsoftware@...