Oracle SQL Developer Review

So the Oracle SQL Developer has been out for at least a week now, and I have given the week to try to convert from TOAD to this new shine collection of bits.

Where to get it: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/sql_developer/index.html

What is the Oracle SQL Developer? It is a TOAD replacement. Think of Query Analyser that comes with Microsoft SQL Server.

So, the good parts:

• Free (http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/sql_developer/index.html)
• Easy install.
  
• Syntax Highlighting
• Snippets containing commonly used functions
• Nice Connections tree that expands to tables/views/etc
  
• Drag and drop functionality
• Tabbed interface. So you can run multiple queries at once.
• Very nicely organized right-click menu (compared to TOAD anyway)
  
• Pretty to look at (interface is light blue)
• Works with Oracle 9.2 and above
  

The not so good parts:

• Written in Java. Not a condemnation in itself, but does make the app a bit slow. Takes a good couple of minutes to load up, and the refresh rate is terrible.
  
• 27 MB download (without Java 1.5 bundled in)
  
• The Connection tree: I like it, but it lists all Oracle connections in one tree, and all of the Aliases are part of the connection. So if you are working with multiple databases, and you have the connections expanded for both connections, you can end up doing quite a bit of scrolling. But, I still like it better than how toad does things.
  
• Memory usage -- it wants a lot of it. Just booting up, with no queries run, it is using 60 MB.
• Did I mention the refresh was slow -- oh ya, I did. Just checking.
• Had some problems with my TNSNames file (I have multiple homes)
  

One item to note about the performance: the performance issue has to do with initially loading the application and refresh (a lot of drawing). The query performance, or how quickly it displays data once it is loaded, is fine. I would rank the performance as noticeably slow, but not unworkably so.

I guess the final point: if you cant get TOAD, Oracle SQL Developer is a fine product. It beats the heck out of SQL+.