Andrew..Peterson (12/1/2015)
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (9/14/2015)
hakim.ali (9/14/2015)
robert.sterbal 56890 (9/14/2015)
So is this an area Red-Gate is trying to determine if they can do another ingenious solution?Great question. Red-Gate: are you?
No, diagramming is nowhere on our radar that I know of, nor do I think we would build anything like this. While I think ER diagrams are great tools, it doesn't seem many people see the need, have the expertise or time to build and maintain them, nor is there much of a profit margin here. Especially when there are so many free tools that provide drawing capabilities and could be used.
Personally I think things like ErWin and ERStudio are invaluable, but they're also expensive. I think those companies would be better served selling their products for $300 and getting lots of copies out there and making this a regular practice, but they don't agree.
Disclosure: I work for Redgate Software.
OK, so perhaps SSC and Redgate can locate an open source ER tool, setup to sponsor it, and start working with the SSC community to improve it. They could have the community version, and even a paid, supported version if need be.
Given the hideous complexity of a good ERD tool (like Erwin or ModelRight) [to develop, not use] I don't think this would be viable. Open Source ERD tools exist but they're generally NOT very good.
An ERD tool is pretty much a CADD program for databases. At least the good ones are. The bad ones are fairly useless. Took me *years* to find one that didn't cost thousands and was good enough.
There's a *reason* ERD programs are so expensive.