Bob Futrelle's Teaching

We are now using Apache Derby for our database work, focusing on natural language processing. It is pure Java, nicely organized, and readily embeddable. It creates an entire database in whatever location directory you choose. It creates the same database structure whether in embedded or server mode (though I haven't tried it in server mode). The embedded version runs in the same JVM as the application using it - nice and convenient. All driven by JDBC when used with Java.

I'm certain to teach database courses in the future, so Derby could be quite useful. In the meantime, using it constantly in my research will improve my knowledge and skills.

MySQL creates its databases as sets of complex structures buried near the root in a manner that's hard to move around. With Derby, we can just jar it all up, or ftp the entire directory structure.