englandr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Scott Englander) (07/29/89)
Well, here it is. A summary of responses to my request for
recommendations for an MS-DOS relational database management system.
Thanks so much for your replies; I appreciate your input -- it has made
this decision if not easier, at least better informed.
-- Scott
p.s. I took the liberty of including a couple of relevent net postings
for completeness.
============================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 89 21:32:43 EDT
From: ima!johnl@harvard.harvard.edu (John R. Levine)
Organization: Segue Software, Inc.
If you're using Foxbase on your Macs, use Foxbase on your PC. Why fool
around? PC Foxbase is very well regarded, widely considered much better
than dbase itself.
===================
Date: 1 Jul 89 19:22:00 EDT
From: "JERRY WRIGHT" <bumy@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
Sorry about that. Somewere I pasted the wrong file onto the header; I'm going
to have to start giving files more distinctive names. Anyway I had a short
note about data base managers which may be of some use although may not answer
some of the detailed aspects you may be interested in.
We have records of about 1000 experiments and 25 Gigabyte of data (that is
with a G) on VCR tape and have come to grips with some of the problems involved
in handling that amount of information in a PC based analysis system. I don't
know what department you are in or what the experiments are that you need to
keep track of but I find that Reflex (from Borland) meets our needs in the
laboratory for day to day experimental data tracking. It is not a relational
data base but it will export files in formats for more powerful data base
managers (dBase and Paradox), word processors (Wordstar), spread sheets (Lotus
1-2-3, Symphony), and of course the ASCII text file. We also have a relational
database manager (Paradox 3.0 which is also available in a network version).
Once the preliminary work is done the files are exported to Paradox and more
detailed work done there, also Paradox will output files in a variety of
formats for other programs. It runs well on a 10 MHz AT while Reflex is OK on
a turbo XT clone this save us from having to do the scut work on the analysis
machines. Having a single, simple, cheap data base manager for each individual
solves a lot of security problems and provides a backup for the master system.
Anyway, this combination works for us and I'm satisfied with the
performance. Finding programming support for Paradox may be a little more
difficult that with dBase as it is not as popular but seems to be catching on.
We tried to interface with Macs but there were several fundamenatal problems
that were not easily overcome and decided to go with an entirely PC based
analysis system; we even cut out the departmental VAX because of interfacing
headaches eating up too much time.
=====================
From: marwk@levels.sait.edu.au
Date: 30 Jun 89 15:14:37 GMT
Organization: Sth Australian Inst of Technology
In article <9383@xanth.cs.odu.edu>, aiko@cs.odu.edu (John K Hayes) writes:
> This is to anyone at Ashton-Tate who may be listening. I cannot believe they
> went ahead and put out something so bad as dBASE IV. I am embarrassed for
> initiating it's purchase at my workplace. It takes about 20 seconds just
> to load up enough to start listening - and most of this time is spent painting
> some ridiculous moving logo graphic and an extremely long and annoying
> license agreement (and this is on a 12 MHz machine).
>
> Everything it does seems to take about twice as long as dBASE III. It's all
> very pretty - the BROWSE screens are a whole lot more pleasing to the eye as
> long as you don't mind waiting a year to shift columns around or just to sift
> through the data. Ashton-tate seems to have sacrificed efficiency and speed
> for pretty screens with nice colors.
>
> They've also added a "feature" which forces any programs you try to run with
> dBASE IV to be "compiled" into dBASE IV object files before they are run. Then
> when they run they are just as slow as when they were interpreted line-by-line.
> This is because they do not get linked (although there is some sort of LINK
> command which really does not link - I guess all it does is allow you to
> distribute slow programs that cannot be edited - big help there; what to they
> think I use Clipper for? and Clipper is fast). So, with this "upgrade" you
> now have to wait for a program to compile before it is run and then it runs
> just as slowly as if it were not compiled. AND...if you make any changes to
> the programs - you have to delete the old object file before running it or it
> just runs the old object file.
>
> I hope Ashton-Tate gives out free upgrades to dBASE IV to those of us who
> were stupid enough to pay piles of money for a near worthless copy of v 1.0
> (one of our operators has deleted her copy and replaced it with her old
> dBASE III).
>
> --
I can hardly believe that people are still buying Ashton-Tate products,
especially dBASE products: These have more bugs and cause more problems than
any other product I have ever used. I have hundreds of examples but here is
one:
dBASE III+ was used last year by 2nd year computing studies students for their
group project. Many students came to me saying they counld not understand the
errors they were getting. I ran the programs myself and discovered that the
ELSE clause is sometimes bypassed in an IF statement when the if condition
fails.
I did not find a pattern as to when this effect would occur, so I suggested
that the students use a DO CASE statement instead, for all instances of IF
statements.
This makes the product dBASE III+ UNRELIABLE and it is my opinion that it
should not be used.
Furthermore, having spoken to both Ashton and Tate some years ago while I
was developing a moderately large system, I am very dissatisfied with their
attitude.
I recommend to all my students (and anyone else who mentions a dBASE product)
to steer well clear of their products. There are plenty of better products on
the market.
Ray Kennington
=========================
Date: 6 Jul 89 08:45:00 EDT
From: "JERRY WRIGHT" <bumy@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
A couple of items about our limitations in data processing and what I
know about Paradox.
First, Paradox 3.0 has been out about 4 months. We got it because we
recognized the need for a relational database in the near future, Borland
offered it as an upgrade for Reflex at a very low price, and a couple of
reviews on it were very favorable. By no means are we anywhere near what
would be called "power" users. As for bugs, I don't know of any but that's
not saying much; you might try posting that specific question to the database
group, I recall some people there had some experience with it. I know that
we used their other product (Reflex) for 18 months with out finding any.
Borland has a users help line that others have told me is good; I never had
cause to call so its secondhand info. The package included the telephone
numbers and hours and support was included in the purchase price; I don't
recall the details off hand. From conversations with a couple of people
locally, it appears that Paradox includes several features as standard which
dBase sells separately or there is only 3rd party support. The graphics
output is good quality but business oriented; makes excellent slides for
presentations but not suitable for publication in scientific journals. We
haven't found any commercial program yet that will do graphics we need for
publication. I'll get back to Paradox and start to do more intensive work
with it in a few months; right now we've got a backlog of publications to get
out.
Our problem with interfacing with the Macs was that there was no way to
get the data into the machines for analysis. We work with some big chunks of
data, overall about 100 Mbyte in 20 files to analyse per day of
experimentation. Simply put, we could not find a way to get that amount of
data into a Mac in a reasonable amount of time at the speeds we required. I
looked up the specs and prototyped a DMA interface card for the PC-AT. We
will be building some more to use in addition to the data acquisiton system
we have; but the Mac Nu-bus architecture is a nightmare requiring about 18
chips to arbitrate the interface. Incidentally, the Nu-bus architecture
patent is held by Texas Instrument and licensed to Apple.
Basically, our problems in networking revolve around the fact that
Ethernet is just too slow for us to put files on a central server and have
separate analysis stations. The individual machines are much, much faster
with the data on hard disk locally. I've tried using the VAX as a file
server and people can age visably by the time we've finished the transfers
and done the first cut on analysis. Our data acquisiton speeds are too high
to go directly to the central server so substantial time is consumed
rewriting files for a central server (minimal data acquisition is
20Kbyte/second for 1 min). The limiting factor here is the speed of Ethernet
not the speed of the file server. If your primary use of the cental server
is for files already analysed then you may not run into this problem.
However, I would give it serious consideration if I have to do much file
transfer, especially with mulitple users - that really bogs down the system.
Summary of Paradox. It was easy to get started and had extensive
documentation. There is company telephone support for programming and the
graphics are pretty good. Also, I've been pleased with the company's other
products.
===========================
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 89 19:30:33 EDT
From: emuleomo@yes.rutgers.edu
Foxbase+/DOS is probably the fastest PC database manager available
for DOS. (Not counting those that make you call C-functions directly)
It is a very impressive product and if you use Foxbase/MAC you really dont
have ANY CHOICE but to use the DOS version!
Otherwise you will be doing too much work!!
Advantages of Foxbase+/DOS are
a) Complete compatibility with dBASE III+
b) Almost complete compatibility with Foxbase+/MAC (there are certain Macintosh
specific stuff that cant be done in DOS)
c) Blazing SPEED
d) An Interpreter AND a compiler!!! (Does not need to be linked)
e) Assist-like mode (Foxcentral)
f) Array processing available
g) Built in support for Pull-down and pop up menus
h) Stable product
MY GRIEVIANCES
==============
a) Does not support autorefresh (like is done in PARADOX)
b) Cannot maintain a UNIQUE index after it has been built (like in Informix,
Oracle etc..)
Good for protecting against "duplicate" records!
Well, this is a failing of ALL the dBASE clones in general.
c) Cannot call C routines (except with the load command which I think is
a _PAIN_ to use)
======================================
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 89 21:18:09 EDT
From: Dan Benderly <benderly@cs.columbia.edu>
Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science
I have used both Paradox and RBase. I have found that Paradox is easier to
use in interavtive mode, while Rbase is a little easier to program. Over all,
I would recommend Paradox.
As for dBase, don't even bother!
Dan
======================================
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 11:38:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Nichols <nichols+@andrew.cmu.edu>
I don't remember if I responded the first time or not. I've used both
FoxBase and Paradox and there is no comparison, with Paradox being
vastly superior. In FoxBase, I was constantly scanning the manual
looking for bizarre statements to do the various queries and changes I
wanted to make. In Paradox, I can do almost anything I want with the
query-by-example stuff. I have yet to write any code for the thing.
With their QBE, you can do joins, modifications, sums, etc.
The downside is that occasionally, an operation will compute forever and
then say it's out of disk, even when it seems like it shouldn't need so
much. I suppose I could fix this by just writing a program, so it's
still better than doing it with FoxBase.
There's also an applications generator package that looks nice, but I've
never tried to use it.
=====================================
From: david@cs.ualberta.ca
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 09:23:45 MDT
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
I've programmed in dBase III+, FoxBase, Clipper, and RBase. Rbase should
NOT be considered as a developent platform. It does have some nifty high
level features but it lacks the simple niceties of programming languages
like easy to use variables. I wouldn't recommend it.
Of the dBase clones, I prefer FoxBase because its got the best of dBase and
Clipper. What you might consider doing is developing in FoxBase and then
compiling the finished product with clipper. Just make sure that you try
to isolate the differences before you start coding. They both have non-
standard special features that aren't compatible with each other.
As for dBase IV, I hesitate to make any sugggestions because I've barely seen
it. But dBase IV does remind me a lot of FoxBase (which is good). You may
want to consider waiting for the "new, improved" FoxBase.
========================
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 12:27:36 CDT
From: hgcjr@astro.as.utexas.edu (Harold G. Corwin Jr.)
I may have replied already. If so, just ignor this message.
I recently went through the same thing: which relational database
manager to buy? Were it not for Paradox's limit of 256 bytes in
a text field, it would have been my choice simply because of the
ease of use. As it happened, I chose RBase for DOS because of
its 1500 character limit, moderately easy interface, and a notes
field of over 4000 bytes. Be warned though: a complete installation
will eat up something like 4.5MB of disk space. Since I have only
40 MB total, that is a LOT.
In use, RBase runs acceptably fast on my H-P Vectra (a 286
box), but is rather fiddly to use compared with Paradox. If I had
to do it again? I'd probably go with Paradox, and work around the
text field limitation. Live and learn.
Whichever one you choose -- dBase, Clipper, FoxBase, RBase,
Paradox, etc. -- you'll be getting a very good useful program.
=============================
From: debra@research.att.com
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 10:01:15 EDT
Organization: AT&T, Bell Labs
In article <9410@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> you write:
>The response i got to my request for recommendations for relational
>database software that runs under DOS was not overwhelming. Please send
>me your thoughts -- i need your input! Paradox, dBase, FoxBASE, Oracle,
>RBase users: this means you!
>
Think I missed your first posting.
I have just given a practical database course for which I needed an RDBMS
that runs on normal PC's (with hard disk but with only 640K).
There basically were 3 candidates:
1) Dbase IV. Really is an upgrade of Dbase III+ with some SQL added, but not
a true real system for doing only SQL based development.
2) Oracle. Probably much better than when I last saw it a couple of years
ago. But even then it could have been used albeit very slow.
Unfortunately Oracle now needs more than 640K to run, so it was ruled out.
3) PC-Ingres. That's what I used, and although it has its limitations it
was pretty adequate for my course. It needs an AT. We used it on XTs
and it was just too slow to be usable. On an AT it's much much better
and in the end I was beginning to like it. (On my 386 it was even better).
I would recommend PC-Ingres *if you have to live with 640K*.
This is both the strongest argument for Ingres and its weakness, because
with 640K you just don't have enough to do everything in a very efficient
way. There is a way to use more memory if you have it though.
The 4-GL lets you create applications fairly easily, but I don't think
it really deserves the label 'fourth generation'. I also have ESQL/C,
(sql embedded in C) and I don't see what makes 4GL a generation higher
than ESQL/C.
Paul.
===================================
Organization: SAC-UNIX, Sacramento, Ca.
Date: 14 Jul 89 19:59:01 PDT (Fri)
From: mailrus!sactoh0!snmoore (Steve N. Moore)
Hi- The database products I am most familiar with is dBASE III+, dBASE IV,
and Clipper. Between these products, Clipper is the clear choice. Clipper
is very powerful, and I think the ideal choice for developing stand alone
custom applications in which you want to distribute multiple copies without
royalty fees. While it is lacking in some of the features of Paradox and
RBASE, there are plenty of quality add-on products like R&R Relational Report
Writer, and UI Programmer which make this insignificant.
I have read quite a few reviews of the other products, and feel that both
Paradox and RBASE are the other best choices for a database language. I feel
these would be more appropriate in a situation where you don't want to
program, but would rather provide the user with a ready made set of menus
which provide them with most of the capabilities they would probably need.
Between the two, I would choose Paradox. This is because I think it has a
better menu structure, more features, and I think highly of Borland, the
company which sells it.
I cannot comment on some of the other software packages, but do know that
they seem to consistently rate lower than the others by more than one
reviewer. There may be certain needs of course which mandate another
product such as Oracle. For instance, for those needing a database language
which runs on multiple platforms, Focus is a good choice, which is exactly
the reason we use that language in the government agency I work for.
I hope this has helped you make a choice.
============================
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 22:31:41 PDT
From: viki@crash.cts.com (Victoria Harkey)
Organization: Crash TS, El Cajon, CA
In LAN (July 1989) issue there is a very interesting article about
DataEase 4.0. It appears that DataEase has out sold the competitors
(Oracle, Paradox, FoxBASE, R-Base and PC-Focus), but did not outsell
the old faithful dBase. dBase is a memory hog, and there are easier
database programs around. Take a look at DataEase. 800-243-5123 (phone)
(phone) or 203-374-8000 for CT. It will work on a stand alone PC, or
a Novell Advanced 2.0a or higher, Banyan Vines, IBM PC LAN 1.10, 3COM
EtherSeries and 3+ 1.2; AT&T StarLAN Network; or other LANS supporting
MS-DOS 3.1 or higher.
I have not used this product, but the analysis was very imprssive.
==============================
Date: Sat Jul 15 14:34:47 1989
From: gatech!cs.utexas.edu!uunet.UU.NET!watmath!egvideo!timk (Tim Kuehn)
In the dBase arena I can catagorically recommend without reservation
Foxbase/+ v2.1. Not only is it the fastest database package on the market
(Databased Advisor - The Database shootout (may or april?)) but it also
runs on three different major platforms - DOS, Networks,and XENIX (that
version is marketed by SCO). And they are *all* source code compatable -
in beta-testing the SCO version using a DOS version of a major program
I wrote, with the exception of some minor bugs the program ran without
modification under SCO's Xenix. Since it's a pseudo compiler also you can
interrupt the processing of a program (hit the "ESC" key) and look at variable,
try different things, and then resume operation of the program right where it
left off. A *great* debugging aid!
I'm just getting into Clipper (a client said "You WILL use this package."
since they'd already standardized on it) and while it's O.K. I like the Fox
package better. I just can't really get into waiting for a program to
compile and link (about 2 - 3 min.) when I can edit, p-compile, and run a
module for foxbase in 1 min. when you're doing a lot of debugging of a smaller
set of modules that go into a bigger package the time savings really adds up!
=============================
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 10:52:38 EST
From: munnari!murdu.ucs.unimelb.EDU.au!sue@uunet.UU.NET (Sue McPherson)
Organization: Software Contracts Group, University of Melbourne, Australia
R:BASE ......
I've just finished developing an application using R:BASE, and I was really
quite pleasantly suprised by the flexibility and performance of this package.
The 'relational' side of things is handled very well, setting up order header -
order items type screens is very easy. The report writer is O.K. but a bit
limited - I had to write a program to do one of my complex reports, but it
wasn't too hard. For a big and/or complex application I'd consider getting
the compiler and advanced report writer.
The things which I liked a lot were;
- Relational forms for data entry
- Security, I was able to set up passworded access very easily
- Note fields with scrolling areas within forms
- Easy to do table look-ups within data entry forms and reports
- R:BASE Exchange newsletter is very useful - lots of good hints
- Command line or Prompt by Example makes it easy to use, initially I tested
a lot using the PBE and then writing the program
- Error handling within programs, you set it up so errors aren't displayed but
a variable is assigned the appropriate error code
Things which were quite good were;
- Documentation, very good reference manuals - but a bit confusing when first
learning the package
- Interpreter, usually I find interprepters very tedious, but since a lot
of the 'work' (ie. data checking) is done within the form, most of my
programs were very short and it didn't matter much
I have only heard a few gripes, which are;
- R:BASE will run on an XT, but performance is not good (but then again, some
packages need at least a '386 machine)
- Memory can be a problem, for instance, if you have a network running which
takes 120K from your meagre 640K, with DOS and R:BASE loaded, you've only
got 10 or 20 K left for data/screens/etc so not much can be kept in memory.
- If you do run out of memory, R:BASE drops the things it doesn't need but
in a worst case scenario (when what you need won't fit) R:BASE can drop
your variables causing some very erratic behaviour.
===========================
From: tegra!atlas!vail@swan.ulowell.edu
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 12:01:54 EDT
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 89 22:11:08 EST
From: Barbara Hicks <ulowell!trillium.waterloo.edu!bjhicks>
Here is the result of my request for information
concerning Public Domain or Shareware Database Programs.
I received four replies containing two votes for PC-File, one vote
for VP-Info (a commercial product) and one for Watfile/Plus (also
commercial).
Here is a quick summary of each of the programs:
PC-File
=======
Published by Jim Button, this shareware database has two different versions.
"PC-File+" and "PC-File:db". The main difference between the two is that
the "db" version creates and uses files in the same format as dBase III.
Therefore, data is completely transferable between dBase III and PC-File:db.
In contrast, PC-File+ uses it's own file format.
Both programs are available by anonymous FTP from SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL
(maintained by the ever-present Keith Petersen :-) who uses PC-File+ to
catalog the Simtel20 archives). Both programs use a user-friendly menu-
driven style and will import from/export to other file formats.
>From my own (very) recent experiences using PC-File:db, I would say that it
is every easy to use (I have barely touched the documentation yet :-)
With very little effort I have set up a test database to catalog my growing
photograph collection. Brendan Fagan writes:
"...got copies of PC-File:db and was able to set up simple
applications in an hour, get person to enter data in 15 minutes."
Jim Button has also written a spreadsheet program called PC-Calc that can
extract information from a PC-File database. He has also written several
other programs (including a communications package).
VP-Info
=======
This is a commercial product published by Paperback Software. It can
apparently be obtained by mail order from PC-Connections for approx $100 (U.S.
probably). Not knowing anything about this, I quote from Gary Barret:
"VP-Info is as fully-featured as Dbase. It's programmatic
language very much resembles that of Dbase (at least Dbase II)"
Paperback Software also publishes a Lotus 123 clone called VP-Planner.
Apparently, these two can be used in combination with each other.
Watfile/Plus
============
This is published by Watcom Software (a spinoff from the University of
Waterloo, Canada) and has versions written for MS-DOS, VAX/VMS, VM/CMS,
and for the Macintosh computer. Johnathon Vail says that it satisfies
all of his database needs. I have not looked at it yet. It too is a
commercial product, but I don't know how much it costs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
My thanks to Keith Petersen, Gary Barrett, Brendan Fagan and Johnathon Vail
for taking the time to reply.
=========================
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 16:25:23 PDT
From: inp@violet.berkeley.edu (Bob Tidd)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
We are evaluating mostly the same products for a large database
with over ten major subsystems to run on a network of over 40 PCs.
I'm writing to say that we have used PC FOCUS for a while and are
evaluating Informix also in addition to dBase 3+ or 4, Paradox, and
Oracle. I have no experience with either.
We have seen Paradox and feel that it is okay for Query/Browse, but
not robust enough in transaction processing for our needs.
The knowledgeable programmer here likes PC FOCUS and has experience
with dBase 3+. I've heard 3+ and 4 are not good in their networking
versions; trouble with record locking. And that 4 is slower on some
things. So far we only have Mag reviews on Oracle and the others.
Depends on what you want it for. We kinda "want it all" (heavy key
entry, good report generation, easy user-made ad-hoc queries, sub-
second response time all around, etc). I think we could get all this
on a Vax 11/750 but maybe not on a network, no matter what the server(s).
Would appreciate your results, and I'll keep you posted if you like as
we narrow our decision.
PC Magazine liked Paradox and Rbase in the DOS collection, but didnt'
review the bigger guns. The other big names that come to mind are
Ingres, Sybase... in the Unix world Unify, Marathon, Mistress (smaller
guns :-).
===============================
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 17:26:13 PDT
From: dberg@cod.nosc.mil (David I. Berg)
I've used INFORMIX under both UNIX and DOS with equal success. Score
one for INFORMIX.
============================
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 19:37:37 EDT
From: David Herron aka Admiral Gollum <agollum@engr.uky.edu>
You'll probably want to give Rbase a miss, then. It can only handle
Dbase files by first converting them through its GATEWAY module
(basically a separate program).
========================
From: shevett@labii.UUCP (Dave Shevett)
Date: 24 Jul 89 03:21:44 GMT
Organization: DB Computer Services
I've been reading this thread for a while, and I'm constantly snickering
to myself listening to people looking for an inexpensive way of getting a
GOOD, POWERFUL database to run in a multi-user environment.
Simple. Get Foxbase.
Foxbase under Xenix/Unix is one of the nicest chunks of code I've ever had
the pleasure of working in. A rundown - I'm running a moderate Foxbase
program (about 3000 lines) on a 16mghz 386 system with a 40 meg drive. I
have 4-6 people accessing it regularly, and the system HUMS along. No
expensive equipment, no absurdly complicated DBMS, no horrendous pricetag.
Probably the greatest boon has been the ability to just copy the files from
my Unix system to a DOS disk, and run the application IMMEDIATELY on my PC
at home. All my development was done on my PC, and a quick copy and run
later, the system came RIGHT UP under Unix.
Hats off to Fox and an exceptional program. If it weren't for them, I
wouldn't be in business today.
================================================
Date: 24 Jul 89 19:09:00 EDT
From: "JERRY WRIGHT" <bumy@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
A short follow up note on networked data bases. You might want to look in
the August 89 issue of PC World; there is a 3 page quick intro to data servers
and relational data bases. The box on page 170 may be of use. Also, on the
same page were a couple of short notes on strucutured query languabe and how
Paradox handles network queries vs dBase. Seems the difference is fundamental
and of importance in applications. Additionally, you might try to contact the
author, he seemed to be very knowledgable in the general field and may be able
to answer a few questions.
--
- Scott