"Sharpen" Increases Market Reach While Keeping a Unified Code Base
SAN MATEO, Calif., May 30, 2008 - db4objects (http://www.db4o.com/), creator of the leading open source object database, has announced that its Sharpen Java to C# source code conversion tool is now available to the public as free software. db4objects has used the tool extensively to generate most of the .NET db4o engine core code and unit test suites from Java sources.
"Sharpen is the 'secret sauce' that enables us to provide the db4o object database engine in native version for the two most popular platforms from a single code base," said Anat Gafni, vice president of engineering at db4objects. "Our decision to release this tool to developers to help them bridge the gap between Java and .NET and create truly cross-platform applications is just one more clear indication of our commitment to the Open Source community."
"The emergence of LINQ is very exciting for developers and we are thrilled to leverage the capabilities of these extensions to allow developers to maintain the full power of complex object structures and the development environment that is often lost or compromised when translating to/from SQL," said Anat Gafni, vice president of engineering at db4objects. "We have optimized our support for LINQ so that queries are executed in a high-performance fashion."
Sharpen gives developers the ability to support both Java and .NET while maintaining a single source code without having to invest in an expensive translation tool. Since the tool has been integrated into db4o's development cycle, it a well tested and mature solution that developers can trust.
"The advantages of maintaining a single source code base cannot be underestimated," said Rodrigo B. de Oliveira, technical lead architect at db4o. "In the development cycle, multiple source bases inevitably start to diverge, and lead to duplicate efforts, and differences in features and quality between the platforms. Once a very challenging task, maintaining a unified code base, and in turn a unified community, now is truly possible."
For developers interested in Sharpen capabilities, the current features include:
- Mapping between Java and .NET native type system
- Compliance with C# coding conventions
- User-defined namespace/class/method mappings
- Method to property mappings
- Generics support
- Partial conversions
- Mixing native and converted C# sources
- VS solution file support
- Ant integration
"Sharpen bridges the gap between our Java and .NET communities," said German Viscuso, db4objects' community manager. "We have been able to effectively receive source code contributions from both Java and .NET developers without having to worry about db4o versions being out of sync. It's simply the best of both worlds!"
The tool is being released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The subversion repository, documentation and issue tracker are available online. In db4o's Sharpen forum, developers can provide feedback and contributions to increase the availability of automatic conversion of not-yet supported Java constructs and idioms.
For more information on db4objects or any of its products, visit the company's Web site at http://www.db4o.com/ or send an e-mail to: sales@db4o.com. To join the largest open source community on object databases visit developer.db4o.com
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About db4objects, Inc
db4objects, Inc (http://www.db4o.com/) provides db4o, the world's most popular object database, native to Java and .NET and available under open source and commercial licenses. With some 35,000 registered community members and well over one million downloads, db4o is used in a broad array of industries around the globe. Customers include the world's most innovative companies, including Boeing, Bosch, Ricoh, and Seagate. db4objects is based in San Mateo, California, and backed by noted Silicon Valley luminaries including Mark Leslie, founding CEO of Veritas; Jerry Fiddler, founding CEO of Wind River; Vinod Khosla, founding CEO of Sun Microsystems as well as Palo Alto-based Asset Management venture firm.
Press and analyst contacts: press@db4o.com