biggity@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Jon Johnston) (10/03/89)
I would like to continue it. I do a great deal of work on networks, mostly
Novell, and am quite interested in what people are oding about database
development across the LAN.
Too be honest, I can't see much of a performance difference between
Rbase, Dbase (I program in Clipper, so this is to what I'm referring), and
Paradox. All three are conventional in the fact that they must pass the enitre
entire application (and requests) across the LAN, creating a traffic
bottleneck.
What I'm particularly interested in; what are people doing with the new
SQL server interfaces, as they seem to be the way to go on LANs. Much more
efficient, unfortunatley, I don't think they've caught on that much yet.
Clarion? I have never seen Clarion. What did you like about it, and
what can you compare it to? It is an interpreter or compiler and how does it
work??
ANd if you can, more about Emerald Bay, I've heard good things about it.
UUCP: {rosevax, crash, orator}!orbit!pnet51!biggity
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INET: biggity@pnet51.cts.communish@ms.uky.edu (Munish Mehra) (10/04/89)
Clarion is a database programming language that can be run under a
preprocessor or compiled into an exe file
It allows linking with C, Pascal etc,
There are two levels you can use it at.
It has something called designer that generates Clarion code once you
spec out your database details. ie. data dictionary, menus, tables,
data entry screens, file processing. Everything can be done using
menus and you needn't write any code. You can actually program
designer to tailor your needs. So in some sense it is a meta language.
This is very neat to design quick applications or prototypes. A lot
of EX dbase and foxbase users swear by it.
The problem with this is, to tweak the code you really need to
understand the Clarion language in some detail. And ofcourse once
you've tweaked it you can't go back into designer.
Instead of using designer you can program directly in the Clarion
language, a mixture of C, Pascal, Fortran and probably most other
languages. They claim it has the strengths of all these high level
languages. (I think it isn't as great as they claim, and I also
suspect the guy who designed the language and wrote the compiler
didn't really understand the intricasies of programming languages or
compilers !)
The language has all the necessary constructs and data structures
for writing database applications including an interactive utility
to design and generate code for Screens(For menus or Data Entry)
and Reports. These are really neat and cut development time
significantly. The language also allows caching records etc.
It allows setting up of a chained help subsystem theat you can tie
to screens or individual fields.
The tech. support is good and they have a 24 Hr Bulletin Board that
is very useful.
The language/package has minimal security features, and to make the
system secure you have to do it yourself. There is no Audit trail.
The major shortcomming I find are the following (and somebody can tell
me how these compares with other languages).
(1) there is no equivalent of the pascal assign(file,filename) or C
fp=fopen(filename,filemode)
(2) there are no pointers.
(3) screens can not be passed as function parameters.
(4) On exitting a function all screens that were opened in it are
closed.
(5) There are no variables of type FILE or FIELD, these are all
predefined constants.
And there are some more which I'll try and write coherently and post.
Incidentally there is a fairly large following of people using Clarion
to develop "address book" kind of applications in a day, that they
charge clients $$$$'s for.
And the other thing that @#$%^% me of about Clarion is that, you can only
have one variable declared on a line and it must be in Column 1.
I've always heard of people switching from dbase/foxbase etc to
Clarion but none the other way. Are there any out there.
My personal summary on database languages : If you are a "programmer"
use C (get a good set of functions and you have the "power" to do what
you want - FAST)
Emerald Bay was running a special $99 or something. Go ahead guys, try
it, It may be what you've longed for.
munishconnelly@deimos.cis.ksu.edu (Paul Connelly) (10/04/89)
How about "Revelations"? does anybody have any information on this?
It's supposed to be a DBMS for PC's.
--
W. Paul Connelly Dept. of Comp. & Info. Sci.
BITNET: connelly@ksuvax1.bitnet Kansas State University
INTERNET: connelly@ksuvax1.cis.ksu.edu Manhattan, KS 66506
UUCP: ...!{rutgers,texbell}!ksuvax1!connelly (913) 532-6350kbc@mdbs.UUCP (Kevin Castleberry) (10/05/89)
In article <1205@orbit.UUCP> biggity@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Jon Johnston) writes: > What I'm particularly interested in; what are people doing with the new >SQL server interfaces, as they seem to be the way to go on LANs. Much more >efficient, unfortunatley, I don't think they've caught on that much yet. > We are currently building interfaces for KnowledgeMan and GURU to talk to SQL Server and IBM's EE database manager. We will be demoing this at our world wide user conference next week in chicago. We expect to be shipping with this interface (a final released product) in January. Worth noting is that the way we are building this is through tools we provide with the product. That means if you want to use sql to talk to a server we don't support you could build your own. Happy to discuss this more if others are interested. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kevin Castleberry (kbc@mdbs) Micro Data Base Systems Inc. {rutgers,decvax,ucbvax}!pur-ee!mdbs!kbc P.O. Box 248 (317) 448-6187 Lafayette, IN 47902 for sales call: (800) 344-5832
jcook@rt15.cs.wisc.edu (James Cook) (10/07/89)
Regarding CLARION: I too use CLARION and feel it is by far the best database program for users who wish to create applications which can be distributed to others without royalty fees. If you just want to put data in and search on it I would probably choose another package like paradox. But if you want to create applications (menus, tables, forms, reports) which can be used by others, CLARION is it. Its application generator is truley a wonder. I can create database applications 10 times faster with CLARION than with other programs (this is no exaggeration!). There have been several reviews on CLARION in PC Magazines. If you are serious about getting a database, I would give them a call and get there information packet. I don't know their number off hand, but they are located in Pompano Beach Florida. Try it, you'll like it.
M.Jones@massey.ac.nz (Michael Jones) (10/11/89)
In article <3848@deimos.cis.ksu.edu> connelly@deimos.cis.ksu.edu (Paul Connelly) writes: >How about "Revelations"? does anybody have any information on this? >It's supposed to be a DBMS for PC's. Are you talking about 'Advanced Revelation'? It is a database which is modelled closely on the PICK operating system with extra window painting faetures, report writers, etc. I have used it a bit and quite like it (although I'm probably biased as I've worked on PICK systems for a couple of years). Version 1.0 is pretty buggy and has a lot of loose ends (like using the 'message' routine). It is pretty slow so isn't suitable for high-volumes of transactions. It's main strengths are the speed with which applications can be developed, and the flexibility of applications. To compare speed with PICK I partioned my disk and installed the PICK operating system and ran a couple of similar applications on Revelation and PICK. As expected, PICK was magnitudes faster (sorry, didn't do any benchmarks). - Mike ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Michael Jones, Computer Science Dept, Massey University, Palmerston North, NZ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phone +64 +63 69099 Ext 7816 Internet: M.Jones@massey.ac.nz ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
saify@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (saify.lanewala) (10/12/89)
In article <1205@orbit.UUCP>, biggity@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Jon Johnston) writes: > > I would like to continue it. I do a great deal of work on networks, mostly > Novell, and am quite interested in what people are oding about database > development across the LAN. .. .. > ANd if you can, more about Emerald Bay, I've heard good things about it. > I have used Emerald Bay's database engine. It's written by Wayne Ratliff, and was being marketed by Migent. Migent had some financial difficulties, and wound up selling (?) off the marketing rights to a Canadian company (Lanware ??). Anyway, when I first bought the package for a client of mine, I was quite excited. It seemed to have most of the features my client wanted. A couple of things that were not in, like partial key matches, phonetic matching, etc. were promised. With the change in rights and all, I have not heard from them. At this point in time, I have stopped using the package, not because I don't like it, but because I'm not comfortable with their survivability. Most of their emphasis seems to be on Eagle, their dBASE answer, while my focus is on their C Applications Development Library. In a nutshell, I like their product idea, would like to see them do well, but I could not justify using their product for a client application unless I see some movement from their side. As far as I can tell, no C library enhancements have been announced. Hope that helps muddy things up a bit more than before (;-) Saify Lanewala ...attunix!stl
saify@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (saify.lanewala) (10/12/89)
In article <3848@deimos.cis.ksu.edu>, connelly@deimos.cis.ksu.edu (Paul Connelly) writes: > How about "Revelations"? does anybody have any information on this? > It's supposed to be a DBMS for PC's. > > -- > W. Paul Connelly I have used Revelation since Revelation Version F was available circa 1983/1984. It's based on the Pick Operating System, and uses a similar dictionary- based approach to providing an integrated data definition, data manipulation and reporting environment. There are currently two major flavors available -- Revelation G (REVG) and Advanced Revelation (AREV). I don't know if REVG is still supported. Everything in Rev sits in logical files. Files contains records, records contains fields, which contains sub-fields etc. A record is a data dictionary item, or an R/BASIC program, or data for an employee etc. Major components of REVG are: 1. R/BUD -- dictionary builder 2. R/BASIC -- which is an enhanced BASIC producing compiled pseudocode 3. R/LIST -- which is an inquiry facility 4. TCL -- a terminal command language -- execute anything that's been cataloged 5. a report generator 6. a cataloging procedure -- catalog files, commands, new user-defined verbs plus some other assorted utilities. In particular, the dictionary is very powerful. Each item you define in this dictionary is essentially unlimited in length, and one describes a display length, which can be scrolled right/left so the entire field can be seen. You can assign simple or complex formulae to each field, and these can in turn be R/BASIC programs that are permitted to do file i/o. You can assign, again via the formaula field, an automatic table lookup, so you can assign a code to one field, and automatically have the corresponding description be available for the other field (for which you do the table lookup). The R/LIST processor allows SQL-like selects, sort-selects that you can use one-shot or catalog for future use. In my experience, this was the part about REVG that was quite clumsy for all its inherent power. It was also very slow as soon as the record size and the number of records grew beyond that needed for trivial applications. For example, a client of mine had a database with 5000 records, 1000 fields per record. A typical R/LIST command to retrieve records from that database sorted by a non-key field could easily take upto 40 or 50 seconds. Typical response for a similar database using a C database library took about 9 seconds. The other annoying thing about REVG is the file layout (which the user never sees). REVG stores files in 64K chunks. This means that a large database gets broken up into N 64K chunk DOS files. A hashing algorithm determines which of these 64K chunks is needed. The entire 64K chunk is read in. The other implication of this has to do with certain R/BASIC language features. You are allowed to CALL 'external' subroutines (external to the R/BASIC program); these external subroutines have to be cataloged in a REVG file. The first time you use one of these subroutines, there is a noticeable delay while REVG searches for this subroutine, then loads it, and executes it. Subsequent calls to this subroutine naturally are fast. Unfortunately, if you have enough of these externals, eventually one of the loaded subroutines is swapped out... Finally, there is a cross-reference facility, but no indexing, so ... ADVANCED REVELATION: In an attempt to fix some of these problems, plus add a lot more new features, Advanced Revelation was created. For one thing, b-tree indexing was added; the Revelation filing mechanism was changed; a bunch of windowing stuff was added. I haven't really had much of a chance to dig deep into AREV, but will have an opportunity to do so in the near future. I'll be able to provide a better summary then. Sorry about the long article again. Saify Lanewala .... attunix!stl
chuckb@hounix.UUCP (Chuck Bentley) (10/17/89)
In article <2235@cbnewsl.ATT.COM>, saify@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (saify.lanewala) writes: > I have used Emerald Bay's database engine. It's written by Wayne Ratliff, > and was being marketed by Migent. Migent had some financial difficulties, . . > of things that were not in, like partial key matches, phonetic matching, etc. . Let me quote. Emerald Bay is Back!!!! RSPI is now shipping Emerald Bay Version 2. To encouage you to "test the waters" of Emerald Bay, Wayne Ratliff has authorized a very special offer. Till the end of October all Emerald Bay Developer Products are $99 each. . Vulcan - what Wayne would have made dBASE into if they had let him. . C Developers Toolkit . Pascall Developers Toolkit . Liason . Emerald Bay Database Server Contact them at *818) 546-3850 or (818) 248-0877 I'm just another hacker who feels like other hackers like Wayne should be supported. Chuck...