Michael.Krall@busker.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Krall) (12/26/89)
I have been working on a series of stacks to help a physician manage
patient data regarding cholesterols and other lipids. The stack files
patient info and also has a knowledge based expert system built into it.
There are about fifty fields on each card. My problem is that I am
contemplating using this stack for in the neighborhood of 20,000 records.
I will have it on a file server with two Mac terminals. I've been told
that using Hypercard with that many records will bog down and be
unacceptably slow. I'm therefore thinking about using another data base
to store the data, then import the info into the many Hypercard fields
and useHypercard as the front end interface. So, each time I pull up a
patient from Hypercard, I need to open another database file, import the
data into the fields. Then after updating the Hypercard record, I need to
export the data into the data base. Sounds easy. But, I have almost no
experience with such operations and I've run into trouble. My questions,
initially, are: any one have a suggestion about an appropriate data base
to use, and anyone know of a good reference(s) which discusses the
importing/exporting problem in depth? (I've read the stuff in Goodman
which was a start but not sufficient). Thanks.
--
Michael Krall - via FidoNet node 1:105/14
UUCP: ...!{uunet!oresoft, tektronix!reed}!busker!Michael.Krall
ARPA: Michael.Krall@busker.FIDONET.ORGxdaa374@ut-emx.UUCP (William T. Douglass) (12/27/89)
In article <1283.2597261A@busker.FIDONET.ORG> Michael.Krall@busker.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Krall) writes: >I'm therefore thinking about using another data base >to store the data, then import the info into the many Hypercard fields >and useHypercard as the front end interface. >My questions, >initially, are: any one have a suggestion about an appropriate data base >to use, and anyone know of a good reference(s) which discusses the >importing/exporting problem in depth? You might want to look at Oracle for the Macintosh. Oracle provides a fairly well-integrated fromnt-end to their network database systems using XCMDs to access data through HyperCard. The package comes with some example stacks, so you could get an idea of how things work. Another option might be the HyperCard tools that come with the newest version of Omnis 5. These are procedures that are said to allow you to access data directly from an Omnis database, without going through the import/export business. For that matter, somebody may have such an animal available for dbase-style databases (for FoxBase+/Mac, dBase/Mac, McMax, et. al.) Finally, depending on what you're doing, it may be wise to consider re-working the application in using a 4GL database package. Certainly, FoxBase+/Mac gives you great control over the user interface as well as the advantages of an integrated database engine. 4th Dimension is similar in this respect, as are many other db packages. Disclaimer: I work heavily in FoxBase, have dabbled with Oracle & 4D, and know only what I read in the papers about the other packages mentioned here. -- Bill Douglass, TCADA "I dreamed I was to take a test, in a Dairy Queen, on another planet." L. Anderson