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It can only be used as such as a funny intellectual exercise. It really isn't convenient for anything else than transforming XML documents into something else (including, but not limited to, other XML documents).

Or rather, to make it fulfill its purpose, you have sometimes to consider XSLT as a functional language. It rarely happens, but I had once to convert a DBDesigner file into a set of HTML entity documentations, and if I hadn't been taught in CAML and functional programming fifteen years ago, I'd likely have been stumped on that problem.

But devicing an XML syntax to be considered a full-blown programming language that isn't specifically designed to handle XML structures? Unless it's toying around with theories, it sounds like a waste of time to me.

Equivalents to Query Browser and DBDesigner4/Workbench.

Use them. They rock. Query Browser does everything I used in phpMyAdmin and much more. DBDesigner4 and and it's (currently rather unstable) replacement, Workbench, are extremely useful for designing/modifying databases. I prefer PostgreSQL for speed, stability, and features, but I develop in MySQL just because of those tools.

I've had good experiences with DBDesigner (GPL) for database modeling, though I wasn't doing anything extremely taxing and it may miss some blinkenlights the paid products have. It was more than adequate for what I needed...

1. Visio replacement (dia can work but is not a complete replacement)

Agreed. Dia is crap, but DBDesigner4 will put Visio to shame in many respects. I'm not as familiar with the other two, but I'm willing to bet that a bit of googling will turn up suitable replacements there, as well.

DBDesigner4 is opensource and does arbitrary scaling just fine...

DBDesigner4 is an open-source database designer for MySQL. It's not really a replacement for Access, as it doesn't have a form designer for non-techies to enter records. But for all the fancy stuff like designing databases and forming queries, it's beautiful. My one beef is that it depends on Kylix, and as such I still can't compile it in Ubuntu. Worked great in Gentoo though.

Sera

Check out dbDesigner4.

They stopped development, apparently the guys doing it got jobs with MySQL.

Somebody should pick it up, it's very good. Really makes it a breeze to design your DB.

Link seems to be down right now....

1] PuTTY

2] WinSCP

3] McAffee VirusScan Enterprise

4] Moz Firefox

5] WinAMP

6] WinZIP

7] SciTE

8] MS Office

(I'm familiar with OO.o and StarOffice, but from what I've seen, MSOffice is the hands-down winner for me and is primarily what keeps me on Windows).

9] Adobe Acrobat 6.0 PRO

10] DBDesigner 4

And that about rounds out the list. After that, I reboot and hot-patch the box with locally stored patches, reboot, THEN connect for new patches.

Some other good information to know about DBDesigner is that MySQL AB (the company behind MySQL) has purchased and thus secured this program's future.

Perhaps you should try DBDesigner which is quite intuitive, easy to handle, etc.
You can export everything, create a webfront in php, etc.
I use it for my database-class..
It's free, it's os independent. what else do you want? :-)

DB Designer by FabForce.net is also an invaluable addition to any MySQL toolkit.

"Grab Firebird, Postgresql, maybe Mysql (kinda lacks some of the advanced sql features) ... and keep Access around for the graphics ideas (just to show students how a database can be exposed to users in a GUI, how tables are laid out, etc.)"

You don't need Access for that.

Perhaps it might have been better to list what feature's you're looking for in a data modeler, that way we can point you in the right direction. Still, I'll blather on about my fave...

I use DBDesigner4. It's free/GPL, so the price is at least a feature you're looking for. It's also available on Windows, & KDE/Gnome (not sure what widget toolkit it uses), so that's a plus (or minus depending on your religion ;)).

It's also fully optimized for MySQL if that's your platform, but it can support any ODBC database, Oracle, or MSSQL. It has a very intuitive (and pretty, IMO) graphical interface, with great, easy-to-use tools for visualizing, grouping, and relating your data. It also features a graphical Query Builder that lets you point/click your way through complex queries, returning SQL you can insert into your code. It allows reverse engineering of any database it can connect to, as well as synchronization so you don't have to do the setup work after you model, like you might with, say, Visio.

It's not UML; it's really designed specifically *for* relational databases, so if you're just looking for a UML data diagram builder for internal data representation, this is probably not the tool for you.

But if you are using a relational database, I don't think you can go wrong with it. It's at least worth a download.

Not only does DBDesigner4 seem to do everything Data Architect does (cross-platform, SQL generation, importing/exporting from databases), but it's also free.

And it's prettier too.