Our colleague Jonathan Mezach started an open source project on behalf of R&R in May 2020. This project is called 'MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj' and is quite successful on 'GitHub', an online platform for sharing code. It has passed the 100.000 download mark and ofcourse we are proud of that.
Within R&R WFM, we use SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) from Microsoft to manage changes within our database. We made this choice when - several years ago now - we migrated from the Oracle database to SQL Server. At the time, SSDT was the most mature tool that enabled us to perform version control on our database changes.
In the course of time, we have written several scripts that allow developers to deploy their changes locally. We have also written scripts for automating deployments to test and production environments from Octopus Deploy. This has always helped us to implement our database changes in a controlled manner. But, given the developments and changes on the side of Visual Studio and its tooling, it seems that the SSDT tools are lagging behind.
One thing that bothered Jonathan is that it is not possible to install NuGet packages in a SQL project (.sqlproj). This would allow you, for example, to share dependencies in the .NET ecosystem or to modify the MSBuild process.
So Jonathan set out to build it himself. Fortunately, the underlying technology, DacFx, had a public API that allowed him to get started building a solution.
Jonathan managed to build a working solution in several steps. This was then uploaded to NuGet so others could try and test the solution. Initially it was already reasonably tested in various scenarios, but of course there are always scenarios that are not yet covered.
After its launch, the open source project quickly gained traction and good reactions and feedback. This led to further development of the solution and new versions with new features. We also received help from the open source community, with 35 external 'contributions'. We are very happy and grateful for this. For us, this also shows the power and the great potential of open source.
What started as a private project to find a solution for awkward situations with SQL Server Data Tools has become a popular project on GitHub. It has even recently passed the fine mark of 100,000 downloads.
We are, of course, proud of Jonathan and R&R's contribution to the open source community and hope that it will help others. Given the number of downloads and positive reactions, this certainly appears to be the case.
In addition, Jonathan's project has helped us a great deal in managing changes to our database. So it's a nice 'win-win' situation.
Open source technology has many advantages and is used in many areas of the technological spectrum. Think of operating systems for mobile phones (for example Android) or CMS for websites (for example WordPress). The big advantage of open source is that it can be 'developed further' by a large community and is therefore continuously improved and enriched with new functionalities.
Within R&R, we see many opportunities in the field of open source. We therefore intend to share suitable elements of our software with the open source community on a regular basis. The MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj project of Jonathan is a very nice start and we are looking forward to the further developments.
Would you like to know more (technical) details about this project? Please visit: https://github.com/rr-wfm/MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj
