musa@tucson.sie.arizona.edu (Musa Jafar) (07/03/90)
Hello there, We are trying to implement an information system for a small department, our system will include student records (graduate, undergrads and Alumeni), it also includes professors and their grants (accepted, rejected and pending). we also want to be able to access info about grad students, their advisors and projects they are working on. I was thinking of dbase, Oracle, Rbase that type of database system. then I read about DataPerfect which I thought is kind of good (a couple of hours manual reading). The price is good too. ANy recommendation from you guys? Any warnings concerning DataPerfect? Any better product for less than $500.01 dollars? My Email Address is musa@tucson.sie.arizona.edu or post it on comp.databases Thanks
eric@wdl1.wdl.fac.com (Eric Kuhnen) (07/12/90)
In article on DataPerfect, musa@tucson.sie.arizona.edu (Musa Jafar) writes: >Hello there, We are trying to implement an information system for a >small department, our system will include student records (graduate, undergrads >and Alumeni), it also includes professors and their grants (accepted, rejected >and pending). we also want to be able to access info about grad students, their >advisors and projects they are working on. >I was thinking of dbase, Oracle, Rbase that type of database system. >then I read about DataPerfect which I thought is kind of good (a couple of >hours manual reading). The price is good too. >ANy recommendation from you guys? >Any warnings concerning DataPerfect? >Any better product for less than $500.01 dollars? I have used DataPerfect and spoken with the manager in charge of DataPerfect development. In my opinion, the product is not very useful because of its internal bugs. The development process, while seemingly straightforward, is somewhat convulted when more complex processing is required. By more complex, I am referring to averaging operations where, for example, null fields are not to be counted, etc. The database engine also has a nasty habit of corrupting itself, requiring the developer to unload and reload the data and structure. Occasionally, error numbers that should not be seen by a developer/user appear. DataPerfect support is friendly, as is characteristic of all WordPerfect support lines. However, there is no new development on the product. I used the 4-4-88 release of DataPerfect; there may be another bug fix update. WordPerfect Corp. uses release dates instead of x.xyz to track bug-fix releases. Since you are looking for an economical database system with fairly simple storage and processing requirements, I would recommend DBXL from WordTech Corp. They are dBASE III+ compatible, and opinions aside, dBASE III is the de facto industry standard. Also, WordTech has a compiler for DBXL that significantly improves the performance of DBXL/dBASE III+ applications, without the licensing hassles that Ashton/Tate proscribes for its Run-Time Library. Cost is under $300 for the entire DBXL database and compiler development system. Your college Computer Consultation Center should have more information and a contract developer (on-site programmer for specified length of time) for database work. Alternatively, you may choose to do the development yourself. DBXL comes with a learning manual, and there are several dBASE III+ tutorials in print; you will have to translate any dBASE III+ nuances to DBXL. DBXL will point out these nuances. Any questions? e-mail to eric@wdl1.wdl.fac.com "Q"