# Gui front-end for database (jruby + swing + jdbc) or (ruby + (gtk || fxruby) + sequel)

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-front-end-for-database-jruby-swing-jdbc-or-ruby-gtk-fxruby-sequel/125412>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [January 8, 2008, 10:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-front-end-for-database-jruby-swing-jdbc-or-ruby-gtk-fxruby-sequel/125412 "2008-01-08T22:30:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![prhlava](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/71e660/32.png) [@prhlava](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/prhlava)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 10:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-front-end-for-database-jruby-swing-jdbc-or-ruby-gtk-fxruby-sequel/125412/1 "2008-01-08T22:30:55Z")

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Hello,

Did anyone created a medium size database gui application using the  
combinations mentioned? I am trying to decide what to use and would  
like to hear about your experiences.

My current analysis:

GUI toolkits:

GTK2: + mature

- good API(used it a bit for toy applications)

- no table widget  
FXRuby + mature

- good API (used it a bit for toy applications)
- table control

- ?

Swing + mature

- never used it  
? complex

Ruby implementations:

JRuby + can distribute all application as .jar?

- jdbc (but I only used it for very basic stuff)
- access to java libraries

- will it be ever as fast as ruby 1.9/2.x ?

ruby (matz version):

- “the standard ruby”
- fast implementation
- sequel (I have used this in few basic web applications)

- harder (but not impossible) to distribute the app as one file

The database server will be postgresql, but the application has to also  
work standalone/off-site (and synchronise the data with the main  
server). For the standalone database, the choice is sqlite (sequel) or  
hsql (jdbc) - or i just install postgresql also under windows as local  
server.

So far, the ruby/FXRuby/sequel looks the most promising.

Vlad

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![prhlava](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/71e660/32.png) [@prhlava](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/prhlava)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-front-end-for-database-jruby-swing-jdbc-or-ruby-gtk-fxruby-sequel/125412/2 "2008-01-08T22:52:01Z")

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On Jan 8, 2008, at 3:29 PM, Vladimir K. wrote:

> Did anyone created a medium size database gui application using the  
> combinations mentioned? I am trying to decide what to use and would  
> like to hear about your experiences.

This isn’t a database-driven application per se, rather a tool for  
working with databases, but it’s based on Ruby and FXRuby:

[http://www.insula.cz/dbtalk/](http://www.insula.cz/dbtalk/)

I occasionally get queries from people on the FXRuby mailing list who  
are building apps using ActiveRecord as the backend, and so that  
apparently works pretty well too.

Hope this helps,

Lyle

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![prhlava](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/71e660/32.png) [@prhlava](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/prhlava)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2008, 10:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-front-end-for-database-jruby-swing-jdbc-or-ruby-gtk-fxruby-sequel/125412/3 "2008-01-09T10:59:56Z")

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Vladimir K. wrote:

> Swing + mature
> 
> - never used it  
> ? complex

It’s complex, in that it’s very complete and very flexible. Sometimes  
too flexible. However in Ruby it’s a lot nicer…it becomes a really  
easy GUI library to work with.

> JRuby + can distribute all application as .jar?

Yes.

> - jdbc (but I only used it for very basic stuff)

Yes, and other than query differences you won’t have to juggle native  
libraries in any way. And if you used something like ActiveRecord, you  
wouldn’t have to juggle queries either in most cases.

> - access to java libraries

Of course.

> - will it be ever as fast as ruby 1.9/2.x ?

I love that this comes up as a concern. Ruby 1.9 has many specific  
optimizations where it’s pretty fast (like integer math) and has other  
areas where performance has degraded (eval and string operations come to  
mind). I would recommend you benchmark whatever code you’re looking to  
run on all impls before you make decisions about performance; you might  
be surprised. At any rate, the answer is yes, we’ll start aiming at  
implementing the same optimizations in JRuby, probably after the 1.1  
final release.

- Charlie