ajayshah@alhena.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) (04/27/91)
WARNING: I HAVE NEVER USED C-TREE; ONLY READ A LOT ABOUT IT.
Faircom has three serious products: C-Tree, R-Tree and D-Tree.
All three are sold in C source (!!). This source is said to
compile on over a hundred platforms, including Suns and PCs.
Both R-Tree and D-Tree are built on top of C-Tree. Faircom also
does SQL servers but here they have weird licensing hangups which
put them on par with the competition. Besides, the servers only
run on the PC... Faircom doesn't sell C source and has no plans
of doing so.
C-Tree
C-Tree is the basic database access kernel. It is
considered robust, fast and bug-free. As far as I can
tell, it has no silly hard limits; i.e., it can do
megabyte sized records, 32 bit addresable number of
records, etc. It does variable-size records and B+ trees.
R-Tree
This is a report-generating script language. Faircom gives
you a C-callable function which takes a script as an
argument and returns a report.
The script language is considered powerful and excellent
for queries which are run on a regular basis. It is not a
good option for one-time queries, though it may be convenient
to write a awkish frontend which parses a user and
generates R-Tree scripts.
D-Tree
This is a application generator -- things like paint data
entry screens, menus, etc. Useful but nothing to write
home about.
Widely considered buggy in v1.0. Haven't heard feedback
about more recent versions.
As far as I know, Programmer's Shop has the best prices on these
three. Faircom sells a bundle called Faircom Toolbox which is a
combination of these three. Last I heard of, the price was $845.
This is a license for one programmer, there are no royalties.
There is a C-Tree mailing list on USENET. Contact
tony%oha@CS.UAlberta.CA for info.
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Ajay Shah, (213)734-3930, ajayshah@usc.edu
The more things change, the more they stay insane.
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