dgg@athena.mit.edu (David G. Grubbs) (06/15/89)
The following may amuse or anger those unfortunate few who purchased the Acquisition database, but I hope it might benefit the rest of you. Six months ago, after reading a review in Amigaworld, I bought "Acquisition", a database produced by a British company named "Taurus Impex Limited" and distributed in America by "Haitex Resources Inc." Though no expert in database internals, I am an experienced user of Ingres and Informix. I wanted a relational database to play with at home. Acquisition's claims seemed to cover exactly what I wanted. My test, what I thought was a simple address database, uncovered 70 distinct bugs ranging from reproducible system crashes (on more than one machine), through misfeatures (such as a macro editor which removed spaces even from within quotes), to outright fabrications (such as the package's claim of "fully relational".) In truth, there is no hint of the relational model anywhere in the beast. Once I opened the package, I found a misleading manual, a clumsy set of programs, a cartoonish visual appearance and a reek of amateurism. Over a period of 2 months I tried to get through to "Haitex" during their normal working hours. In all that time, I got through twice. The first contact produced a "normal" response: "You should soon be notified of the newest release." My current problems? "I'll have Biff Studsworth call you tomorrow." Great, except no one called or left a message on my recorder. My second success was of the, "Acquisition? Taurus? Who are they?" sort. Frustrated, I sent a flame letter to Taurus in "Guilford, UK". It not only listed the technical problems, but also contained some anger at how badly they had fooled me. They replied with a short letter saying, in essence, "Sorry you're troubled. If you prove to us that you actually bought our product, we might help." I sent them my registration number. Two months later, I got tired of waiting, so I sent an "OK, forget it. Just give me my money back." In response, some turkey, who didn't sign his name legibly and who didn't have it printed on the letter, sent me the most pompous letter I've ever received. It told me how glad they were I had given up on them as they didn't care to have a customer like me anyway. And if I wanted my money, go talk to their distributor. These guys don't want any American business, apparently. This evening I randomly called Haitex again and I got through. After 5 months of attempts, I caught someone there after hours! I gave him my story. He gave me his. I heard of litigation, of a stack of pompous letters three feet tall, of dumping the last copies at cost, of never doing business with the British again. Whether it was true or not didn't matter any more. I had finally found someone who, with no prompting from me, understood exactly what position I was in. Because he was in the same boat. There you have it. I don't know about any of you other victims, but I expect to build a little bonfire of unreadable documentation and to add one more floppy to my hard-disk backup collection. Are there really any relational databases, "Amigaized" or not, for the Amiga?
plav@cup.portal.com (Rick M Plavnicky) (06/21/89)
In article <1067.3.2976.1@cup.portal.com> dgg@athena.mit.edu (David G. Grubbs) writes: > The following may amuse or anger those unfortunate few who purchased the > Acquisition database, but I hope it might benefit the rest of you. [long, painful story deleted] Boy, it makes me glad that I didn't spend the money on this one like I had planned at one time. I, too, was impressed by their advertising when I first heard of Acquisition. Just before I plunked down the cash, I discovered that the product was copy protected. Being of the belief that copy protection has no business being mentioned in the same breath as productivity software, I didn't make the purchase and instead wrote Haitex. I got a nice letter back stating that the new release would be unprotected (for an additional fee) and that numerous bugs would be fixed. Then came the first AmiExpo (New York) and I had the chance to fool around with the 'new release'. Bah! Well David, maybe I didn't find *70* bugs that afternoon, but I certainly learned enough that I knew that Acquisition probably wasn't for me. > Are there really any relational databases, "Amigaized" or not, for the > Amiga? I haven't seen any. Maybe I'm just hard to please or something. I do database programming professionally and I've found that the offerings for the Amiga are a little too, well, amateur (he said, casting about for the right descriptive term, and missing). Please email me if you get any interesting responses. Rick Plavnicky {...}!sun!cup.portal.com!plav "My shoes are on top of the world!"
Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com (06/22/89)
You guys are forgetting Superbase Pro. A very powerful program, yet fairly
easy to use. I suggest you check it out before you condem Amiga Database
packages.
- Doug -
Doug_B_Erdely@Portal.Cup.Comejkst@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Eric J. Kennedy) (06/22/89)
In article <12024@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> dgg@athena.mit.edu (David G. Grubbs) writes: >Are there really any relational databases, "Amigaized" or not, for the Amiga? Well, I'd like to tell you try try Superbase Professional, but I will admit that I'm no expert on databases, and I don't know if SBPro is "truly" (whatever that means :-) relational or not. Certainly Precision Software claims it is. But I read a review that complained that it wasn't quite fully relational. Perhaps another SBPro owner who knows better than I can comment? In any case, I have been extremely pleased with SBPro. (I have no affiliation with Precision Software except as a happy customer...) -- Eric Kennedy ejkst@cisunx.UUCP
dgg%athena.mit.edu@mitvma.mit.edu (06/23/89)
----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >The following may amuse or anger those unfortunate few who purchased the >Acquisition database, but I hope it might benefit the rest of you. > >Six months ago, after reading a review in Amigaworld, I bought "Acquisition", >a database produced by a British company named "Taurus Impex Limited" and >distributed in America by "Haitex Resources Inc." Mistake number 1: Trusting an AmigaWorld review. >Are there really any relational databases, "Amigaized" or not, for the Amiga? The best database I've ever seen on any computer is Micro Feish filer. I haven't used it in depth, but what I saw I was very impressed with. Disclaim! I am not associated in any way with AmigaWorld, and probably never will! /* F. Michael Theilig OHA101 at URIACC.Bitnet "There is no Dark Side of the Moon... in fact it is all dark." */
riley@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Daniel S. Riley) (06/23/89)
In article <18296@louie.udel.EDU> dgg%athena.mit.edu@mitvma.mit.edu writes: >>Are there really any relational databases, "Amigaized" or not, for the Amiga? > The best database I've ever seen on any computer is Micro Feish filer. > I haven't used it in depth, but what I saw I was very impressed with. MicroFiche Filer is nice, but it isn't, by any stretch of the imagination, relational. -Dan Riley (riley@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu, cornell!batcomputer!riley) -Wilson Lab, Cornell U.
scotth@sgi.com (Scott Henry) (06/23/89)
>In article <12024@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> dgg@athena.mit.edu (David G. Grubbs) writes: >Are there really any relational databases, "Amigaized" or not, for the Amiga? ejkst> Well, I'd like to tell you try try Superbase Professional, but I will ejkst> admit that I'm no expert on databases, and I don't know if SBPro is ejkst> "truly" (whatever that means :-) relational or not. Certainly Precision ejkst> Software claims it is. But I read a review that complained that it ejkst> wasn't quite fully relational. Perhaps another SBPro owner who knows ejkst> better than I can comment? ejkst> -- ejkst> Eric Kennedy ejkst> ejkst@cisunx.UUCP Just a note about the Relational Model. According to Codd (the inventor of the Relational Model) and his first disciple :-) Chris Date, there is no commercially available database on any computer that completely conforms to the Relational Model, though some are very close. They have defined a set of 12 criteria to determine a "minimally relational" database, and most databases that claim to be relational meet at least this minimum level of functionality. I must have left my copy of Date's book on Relational Databases at home, so I don't remember the exact title, but if you are really interested in the subject (and it gets rather detailed), that is a very good book to get. I think it is in 2 volumes. --- -- Scott Henry <scotth@sgi.com> #include <std_disclaimer.h>
elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (06/25/89)
in article <19738@cup.portal.com>, Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com says: > You guys are forgetting Superbase Pro. A very powerful program, yet fairly > easy to use. I suggest you check it out before you condem Amiga Database > packages. Superbase Pro isn't a relational database. Or maybe it is... if so, it's a very WEIRD relational database. For that matter, it's a rather weird database period. I'll agree about the power... it has a built-in BASIC-like programming language, so will do an aweful lot of odd things. But -- easy to use? The documentation is miserable and useless. I learned it mostly by playing around with the menus and seeing what happened, despite readings the docs from cover to cover. If Superbase ever became a best-seller, I'd make 6 figure dollars by writing the first readable Superbase manual. PS: A year ago, we nick-named Superbase "SuperBug". I'm playing with sbpro3 right now... I'm curious whether they fixed all those bugs, or merely replaced them with new ones. But at least they put out a new revision, unlike SOME companies. -- Eric Lee Green P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509 ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg (318)989-9849 "I have seen or heard 'designer of the 68000' attached to so many names that I can only guess that the 68000 was produced by Cecil B. DeMille." -- Bcase
ejkst@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Eric J. Kennedy) (06/29/89)
In article <8458@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) writes: >Superbase Pro isn't a relational database. Or maybe it is... if so, >it's a very WEIRD relational database. For that matter, it's a rather >weird database period. I'll agree about the power... it has a built-in >BASIC-like programming language, so will do an aweful lot of odd >things. Like, I did a substantial amount of number crunching with it. A spreadsheet would've been *much* faster, but it could have never organized it all, considering the data is in about 5 databases. I even had it gathering data according to filters, sending it out to a file, and calling MultiPlot to plot it. Oh, did someone mention it does ARexx? Well, it does. I haven't done more than experiment a bit, though. >But -- easy to use? The documentation is miserable and >useless. Sorry, but I disagree. I find the documentation well-organized and very useful. It *is* lacking in some areas, but I certainly didn't have to go to any heroic efforts to learn how to do just about everything I wanted to do. This is the first database I've ever used, too. (Well, okay, SB Personal was the first, but it is just a subset of SBPro.) Maybe that's why I can easily put up with the things you call "wierd". I don't know any better. Or you have preconcieved notions. :-) >PS: A year ago, we nick-named Superbase "SuperBug". I'm playing with >sbpro3 right now... I'm curious whether they fixed all those bugs, or >merely replaced them with new ones. But at least they put out a new >revision, unlike SOME companies. No, they really fixed them. I've really only found one reproduceable bug in SBPro 3.01. (Use Setfont to install topaz 11. Run SBPro. It uses the new font for everything. *very* nice. Open text editor. It uses it too. close text editor. use Setfont to change font to topaz 8. Re-open text editor. Looks silly. Not what I'd call a major bug, though.) -- Eric Kennedy ejkst@cisunx.UUCP