We have been CASE Studio 2 enthusiasts in my company for several years. As system integrators, we have a policy of multi-platform development. Hence our developers work on either Windowses, Linuxes or MacOS X.
As CASE Studio was only supported on Windows, we tried to satisfy our non-Windows developers by running it over Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator), a software layer that lets Unix-family users run (some) Windows applications on their preferred platform. Although not all CASE Studio functions ran on the first try, the error diagnostics that were given upon failures were sufficiently clear for us to understand what the problems were, i.e. missing DLLs.
Although we are still very happy with CASE Studio, we recently decided to give Data Modeler a try, in the same conditions. It turned out to be a real disappointment. The only thing I get (after the splash) is the following message: “Package ‘AlterOR10OR10.txg’ can’t be loaded (inconsistence of data)”.
I queried the Support as to the meaning of this error message and got the following response: “Toad for Data Modeler is technically supported on Windows 2000/XP/Vista” which left me completely baffled. I even thought for a moment that I had misdirected my query and that this answer had come from Redmond. It took me a few days to recover, especially after I had experienced the quality of support from Charonware back in 2005, just in time to be queried in turn by Quest, wondering whether this answer had helped… Sigh.
It may be that Quest is not aware of the fact that not all developers in the world exclusively use Windows. But it is really too bad. I remain convinced that CASE Studio was an excellent product and that it deserved a better future than that displayed by the current level of Data Modeler’s support. I also believe that slightly tweaking Data Modeler’s code would be sufficient to let it run on Wine, opening a wide new avenue of business opportunities. And I am willing to help. Anybody else interested out there?
thank you for your feedback and your offer to help us with Toad Data Modeler development! I have been a member of CASE Studio 2/TDM team since 2001 and I am one of the people who were responsible for CASE Studio 2 support services. There is a high percentage of probability that you could find my signature under replies received from CASE Studio 2 support. If you wish to get in touch with CASE Studio 2 development team, this community is an ideal place. Your suggestions and ideas are welcome.
As you know, CASE Studio 2 (and TDM2) requires Windows, TDM3 requires either Windows or Vista OS. Other OS are not supported. In your post, you have confirmed that also CS2 had problems running on different OS even though Wine or similar product might seem to be a solution. In the past, we tried to run CS2 via Wine, did several tests and, to be honest, we also tried to create special Linux version of CASE Studio 2. But in both cases results of our tests were not satisfactory at all. That’s why we did not oficially recommend Linux users to use Wine+CS2 and that’s why development of Linux version of CS2 was terminated.
TDM version 3 is a new product, written from scratch. Source codes of both applications are totally different and TDM3 now offers you much more possibilities than our old CASE Studio 2 or TDM2.
I wish we had sources and time to fix problems that occur when you try to run TDM3 via CrossOver or Wine, however our current activities are related to fixing child illnesses of TDM - as soon as possible - and adding frequently required features. All development teams have to prioritize tasks and we are not an exception. To my regret, I think that our previous experience with Wine is something what will affect our decision and will put your requirement lower than several others. Thank you for understanding it.
To your offer: We really appreciate your willingness to help us. Time for tests related to Wine+TDM3 or CrossOver+TDM3 may come in future, but I think we are not able to work on it right now. Thank you for your patience.
Of course, please feel free to contact us at any time via this community.
This is a VERY unhelpful answer that sounds like
(1) it came from a Microsoft salesperson (as opposed to a Community site contributor), and
(2) it was written by someone who did not read my post very carefully.
So, I will just repeat…
CS2 WORKS FINE UNDER CROSSOVER (Wine for MacOS X). WHAT DOES THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE MEAN: “Package ‘AlterOR10OR10.txg’ can’t be loaded (inconsistence of data)”?
Anybody out there (except Quest Support) knows? Any Delphi fan around?
CS2 WORKS FINE UNDER CROSSOVER (Wine for MacOS X).
TDM 3.x is a completely different product, written from scratch. Let’s not compare CS2 and TDM 3.x.
Anyway, at the moment, our testers are checking it out.
TDM 3.x with Wine - it hasn’t been planned, and as Vaclav wrote, at the moment we are dealing with tasks of much higher priority.
I’m sorry, I can’t provide you with a satisfactory reply.
WHAT DOES THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE MEAN: “Package ‘AlterOR10OR10.txg’ can’t be loaded (inconsistence of data)”?
Let me explain:
Toad Data Modeler uses packages (.txg files) to extend basic functionality. There are system packages and user packages. The system packages are installed together with the application to the following directory (default path):
C:\Program Files\Quest Software\Toad Data Modeler 3\Packages\System
As soon as you launch TDM, the packages are copied to memory so as to be able to use them.
The message says that the package for alter scripting of Oracle 10g db couldn’t be copied (for not further specified reasons) and therefore functionality of this package is not available.
TXG packages are XML files in fact (as most files in TDM 3) and they are loaded via Microsoft DOM XML parser. We are not sure how DOM works on Wine (what is the DOM accessibility on Wine). And this might be the cause of the problem (probably).
Having TDM run on Wine would be awesome…I tried this myself recently, and got a bit further than Vern. Unfortunately not far enough though
If anyone is still interested in looking into this, I’ll be happy to help however I can. My coworkers make fun of me for keeping a Vista box around, and my only reason is TDM
TDM is the one of two programs (other than utilities) on the Windows guest. The other is The Bat! email program. What is it about Central European programmers, Delphi, and Windows only programs? (I could not get either one to work well enough in Wine.)
Easy now - Delphi is still a very popular application development platform for lots of people, including our flagship Toad for Oracle team located in Cary NC USA. Some people are not ready for non-native language speeds and issues from alternatives like Java and C#. When Microsoft has faith enough in .Net to rewrite their major apps like Office in it, well then maybe
Anyhow - wine is free and it stinks. Lots of apps just won’t run under it - at least not without great effort that seems to breakdown whenever the app releases a new version. That’s why there are commercialized versions of it out there (such as Cross Over and Cedega). I’ve found that commercial wine gets close to be acceptable - but still very far from 100%. That’s why virtualization is a such a welcome and great workaround - for now that is …
I say workaround - because until we all (users and developers) alike go cold turkey and move over to Mac-OS or Linux, the fact remains that software development shops will code for the biggest platform - and unfortunately windows still owns 90% of the desktop (as of 2008 industry reports).
If you wish to get in touch with CASE Studio 2 development team, this community is an ideal place. Your suggestions and ideas are welcome.
