rcw@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Robert White) (10/09/89)
I have several large databases that were developed using dBase III. Some months ago, I upgraded to dBase IV, but only recently installed it on my machine. After a few weeks of use, I uninstalled it and reinstalled dBase III. Am I alone in feeling that dBase IV attempts to be everything to everyone? I would like to know how Ashton Tate developed the specifications for dBase IV. dBase III is relatively simple and elegant, and can be copied to a ramdisk for greatest efficiency. This is simply not possible with dBase IV. Who is the IV product for, anyway? Will dBase V be 10 times the size of dBase IV? Is the product driven by featuritis syndrome? Please respond to this post by e-mail, and I will summarize to the net if responses warrant. Robert White rcw@scicom.alphacdc.com
awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) (10/11/89)
In article <2036@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM>, rcw@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Robert White) writes: > Am I alone in feeling that dBase IV attempts to be everything to > everyone? I would like to know how Ashton Tate developed the > specifications for dBase IV. dBase III is relatively simple and > elegant, and can be copied to a ramdisk for greatest efficiency. > This is simply not possible with dBase IV. Who is the IV product for, > anyway? Will dBase V be 10 times the size of dBase IV? Is the > product driven by featuritis syndrome? dBASE IV is definitely feature-driven, at least from my perspective. No one ever said to me, "let's see what features we can take out of dBASE III PLUS to make dBASE even smaller!" dBASE has a long history of new features and expanded horizons--each new release is bigger and more feature-laden than the past. I think there is definitely a recognition now that we need to manage this size and complexity; the dBASE IV of 1990 will probably reflect this. Consider operating systems. Forgetting mainframes, look how much bigger MS-DOS 3.0 is than MS-DOS 1.1, which was really fat relative to CP/M. Are you familiar with what Apple is proposing for System 7.0? Would you call Unix "everything to everyone?" I don't think people want it any other way. /alastair/ Disclaimer: I'm not speaking for Ashton-Tate, really. It may sound like that, but I'm not authorized by anyone for anything.