Top 9 features a database IDE should have for serious development of procedures/functions:
Knows about the SQL dialect I’m currently developing with (i.e. Postgres, MySQL etc.)
Introspects the schema including views, procedures etc.
Can do suggestions while I type, not only on tables and table columns, but also on parameters, variables and temporary tables defined inside a procedure
Can spot unused variables and references to non-existing tables/columns
Shows table and column definitions in the suggest box and on hover
Does not drop the procedure before it is re-created, until it can prove that it will compile. That could be accomplished by creating the procedure first under a temporary name
Shows dependencies between tables/columns and procedures, even if that is not natively supported by the database engine (again, by introspection)
Lets me quickly jump between different database objects without filling out a “search form”
Provides context-sensitive documentation of built-in database functions
While all of this is fairly standard for any programming language, the only DB IDE that can do all of this right now (at least for MySQL and Postgres) with exception of (6) is JetBrains DataGrip.
Other rather expensive tools only provide a small subset of these features. Tools I evaluated:
- Navicat (most expensive and highly unstable)
- DBeaver
- TablePlus
- Querious (macOS only)
- DevArt’s dbForge (Windows only, but the only tool that features a step debugger (!) for Stored Procedures)
- MySQL Workbench
- Pgadmin
- DBVisualizer
- Database Client extension in VSCode from Weijan Chen
- Azure Data Studio
It seems that Jetbrains has literally zero competitors in this area - so they deserve a bear hug from me.
#sql #database #mysql #postgresql