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Relational databases aren't cool, but they are hugely important to businesses around the world. I've been involved with databases for quite a while, in some cases actively pushing their limits.

Lately, the most interesting database I've used is Postgresql. Dumb name, great product. http://www.postgresql.org/

Oracle is big and ugly, but so are Mack trucks. Both are useful. Oracle runs on Linux, there are some products to help with this process at: http://www.orasoft.org/

Documentation

This tool builds javadoc-like pages from an Oracle schema. I'm not sure that this is a good idea in general (better to generate docs from the source code), but it could be extremely useful for reverse-engineering. http://oraschemadoc.sourceforge.net/

Development

http://www.memoriapersistente.pt/opensource/gaudi/ - a Java tool for visual development of database tables.

http://www.danny.cz/datadesigner.en.html - visual tool for designing database tables, plus a back-end which can translate them into SQL.

http://erw.dsi.unimi.it/ - a web-based tool for database maintenance. Also an excellent example of clean web design using CSS.

http://mdbtools.sourceforge.net/ - tools to manipulate MS Jet (.mdb) databases and move their data into real dbms's.

http://senora.sourceforge.net/ - a command-line tool for Oracle with a plugin architecture. Aims to replace sqlplus (which would be a wonderful thing to do).

-- TobyCabot - 23 May 2002