Dreaming of things that never were

Fabulous Mini Database in Java

I am very impressed with the HSQL product (a lightweight 100% Java SQL database engine). It is not only the best SQL relational database open source product I have ever seen, it is also one of the best written code I have seen in a long time. It is fast and lean but it doesn't skip corners for speed. Which is very nice as it means there is a higher chance of this not doing something unexpected on older or new versions of the JVM.

I also rather like their web site layout too. It has some nice elements that I think I might mimic for my upcoming software distribution project. I am currently writing a fully automated web site engine to let me publish my "memoirs" easily. Which means I can publish talks by dropping the ppts and zip files into a dir and let the engine link them in for me. Source code and product releases will be as easy. Why am I doing this? Because no one else has a good enough web site template engine that does what I want. Specifically using templates that do not have an entirely new template syntax, where each page can be edited separately using ANY HTML editor and the right bits will be merged into the right locations on the templates, where code and presentations can be added without having to do more then drop them into place, and where the table of contents and site maps are generated automatically. Oh and I want all of it to be very intelligently cached so it isn't doing file scans on every hit. More to come on that.

Any way HSQL is pretty cool.

posted by Leeland @ 2:11 PM