I’ve been in the coding dungeon lately, which explains why I haven’t posted for a while. One of the things I’m working on is moving some of FeedDemon’s data out of XML and into SQLite, which I didn’t think would be a big deal since I spent a few years working with SQL before I entered the world of indie development. I wouldn’t claim that I was ever a SQL guru, but I used to be pretty good at it.
It turns out, though, that I’ve forgotten SQL since then. And I don’t mean that I’m just rusty at it: I mean it’s like a foreign language to me now. Sure, I can throw together a simple SELECT statement, but I’ve completely forgotten the syntax for GROUP BY, HAVING, and pretty much everything else. So rather than tackling the move to SQLite with ease, instead I’ve been stumbling through it like a drunk bishop trying to remember where he left his hat.
Anyway…
So far I’m liking SQLite a lot. It’s fast, compact, simple and – most importantly – reliable. For now I’m only converting a few features to use SQLite for storage (specifically, the "Popular Topics" and "Feed History" reports), since that way I can get an idea of the potential pitfalls before trusting it with more valuable data (such as the customer’s subscriptions). The end goal is to enable easily querying downloaded content without the substantial performance hit and overhead of an XML parser.
BTW, if you consider yourself a SQLite wizard, please feel free to share any tips here. I’m sure I could use them at this point!