This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Michael Cote. Original Post: Hypersonic DB (HSQL) in OpenOffice 2.0 Feed Title: Cote's Weblog: Coding, Austin, etc. Feed URL: https://cote.io/feed/ Feed Description: Using Java to get to the ideal state. Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Michael Cote Latest Posts From Cote's Weblog: Coding, Austin, etc.

Check out this article on OpenOffice 2.0 from The Inquirer:

One noteworthy addition to this upcoming 2.0 OO.o release is the HSQL Embedded database engine a fast Java-based embedded database engine that once surprised everyone by beating IBM's Cloudscape (now also open sourced) and even C++ databases. Also included is a user friendly database application dubbed "OpenOffice Base" which allows you to effortlessly create both databases, queries and reports using helpful "wizards".

I encounter HSQL all the time, and use it my personal projects pretty much exclusively. The reason I like it is that it's so simple to use: you can package up an HSQL DB by just including a few files, and then "start it up" simply by accessing it via JDBC. If you run it in embedded mode like this, it essentially can bootstrap itself.

Compare that to having your DB be a separate process (like MySQL or Oracle), meaning you have just one more set of files and processes to worry about. There's tradeoffs between the two for sure. For example, the use case with OpenOffice is single-user (?), while with other DB's it's usually multi-user. On the other hand, it may be the case that in many supposedly multi-user scenarios, you could satisfy the requirements by giving each user their own embedded database.

All that angels on the head of a pin talk aside, the narrower point of the post is simply that learning that OpenOffice uses HSQL makes Hypersonic seem more "real" than it's scrappyness would otherwise imply.