Voyage with Unqlite support

For relational databases there is the tiny SQLite database solution that just requires a simple linked library (DLL/SO file) including the full database engine.

There is a similar tiny database called Unqlite in the NoSQL world. Pharo already had a Unqlite binding in the past. Before Pharo 5 this "PUnqlite" project was based on Native Boost. It was provided by Masashi Umezawa and I extended the project with a spec based UI to provide a database browser for Unqlite.

During the Pharo 5 development I discussed with Esteban many issues on #Slack about porting several of my projects to UFFI. We also discusssed about Unqlite and Esteban quickly ported the PUnqlite binding over from NB to UFFI. This was done on GitHub. Additionally I remigrated the changes back to the original repo of PUnqlite on STHub and made it loadable from Catalog in Pharo 5 again. So with Pharo 5 you again have a package "PUnqlite" that you can load from Catalog. Just open Spotter and type in the name.

During these #Slack sessions we also discussed about Estebans Voyage framework. Voyage is a layer that allows for very simple persistence in Pharo. It is explained here and here.

So far Voyage only worked with MongoDB as backend. Often Mongo requires some setup which might be overkill for simple deployable applications that you want to build with Pharo. So we also discussed about using UnQlite as a backend for Voyage.

Esteban wanted to work on this for a project and now first results are available: Voyage is now restructured with a second backend to support also UnQlite beside MongoDB.

Cool - thanks Esteban!