chris@cayman.COM (Chris North) (02/22/90)
Forgive me if this has been addressed before... I was about to create a simply database using 4D on the mac when our new NeXT arrived and I noticed that it has Sybase on it. Has anyone used Sybase on the NeXT? Is it reliable? Is there any sample code other there other than what NeXT puts on the machine? Thanks Chris -- ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((())))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) Chris North Internet:chris@cayman.com Cayman Systems Phone: 617-494-1999 FAX: 617-494-9270 26 Landsdowne Street Cambridge MA 02139
duggie@jessica.Stanford.EDU (Doug Felt) (02/23/90)
In article <4223@cayman.COM> chris@cayman.COM (Chris North) writes: > I was about to create a simply database using 4D on the mac when our new >NeXT arrived and I noticed that it has Sybase on it. Has anyone used Sybase >on the NeXT? Is it reliable? Is there any sample code other there other >than what NeXT puts on the machine? Recently I've been looking at 4D, Oracle for Macintosh, and Sybase on the NeXT for a simple but good-sized (30K records, 100K subrecords) database. I have only about 4 weeks worth of experience with the Mac databases combined, and about the same with Sybase, so I'm a relative novice. I don't like 4D. The documentation (once you get past the startup manual) is poor, the program has bugs, the layout editor is a pain to use, and the user interface has glitches and lacks features. The language is interpreted (currently) and thus slow, however the database itself is faster than the other two for the kind of searches I need to do. Although you can call your own code from 4D and, I presume, get around some of the problems, this is not documented in the manuals you get from Acius. There is apparently some activity on Compuserve, but I don't have access... Oracle for Macintosh might be ok, but again the documentation has problems. In this case there seems to be no 'administrative guide' to tell you about the system tables, space management, backups and so on. The documentation on calling Oracle from Hypercard, or from your own code, seems complete but I haven't really explored it. My problem with Oracle was that the speed seems too slow for my kind of searches. I also had problems dropping indexes and recovering from glitches, and the loader program crashed a few times. Sybase has, in contrast, been very easy to use. Here my problem has been not lack of documentation, but that some of it doesn't print out properly. Also there is a lot of it. The demo programs have been a big help and showed me pretty much all I needed to get started-- there are a few conflicts with Objective-C include files, but otherwise I have had no trouble calling Sybase from Appkit programs. The loader program supplied with Sybase is also *much* faster-- I loaded my test database in about ten minutes, whereas each of the other databases took over ten hours. Occasionally I have wedged myself by running out of space, but enough searching through the manuals has always turned up a solution. I don't know much about maintenance issues, not having dealt with that yet, but suspect Sybase will be far and away the easiest in terms of backup and recovery from failures. 4D, for example, was unable to read a record (media failure, I suspect) and prompted me to delete it-- but left the index for that record, so I was stuck with a glitched index. I also had problems with Oracle as I mentioned. Sybase hasn't given me any problems yet, but I doubt they'd be any worse. I am not planning on providing multiuser access so have nothing to say in this regard. I seem to remember a previous posting mentioning limitations on the 'free' Sybase bundled with the NeXT, but I don't know for sure. I can't imagine the Mac would be any better, though. I'd also like to know who else has used Sybase and what kind of experience they've had with it. I need to make a decision fairly soon and would like to go for the NeXT despite the lack of a color screen. How has Sybase performed under real use? Doug Felt Courseware Authoring Tools Project Stanford University
liemandt@lindy.Stanford.EDU (Joe Liemandt) (02/23/90)
In article <9453@portia.Stanford.EDU> duggie@jessica.Stanford.EDU (Doug Felt) w\ rites: >In article <4223@cayman.COM> chris@cayman.COM (Chris North) writes: >> I was about to create a simply database using 4D on the mac when our new >>NeXT arrived and I noticed that it has Sybase on it. Has anyone used Sybase >>on the NeXT? Is it reliable? Is there any sample code other there other >>than what NeXT puts on the machine? I have worked with both 4D on the mac and sybase. I am also looking at ways of connecting them, but that is currently impossible, at least until Sybase releases the network version for the next. >Recently I've been looking at 4D, Oracle for Macintosh, and Sybase on >the NeXT for a simple but good-sized (30K records, 100K subrecords) >database. I have only about 4 weeks worth of experience with the Mac >databases combined, and about the same with Sybase, so I'm a relative >novice. >I don't like 4D. The documentation (once you get past the startup >manual) is poor, the program has bugs, the layout editor is a pain to >use, and the user interface has glitches and lacks features. The >language is interpreted (currently) and thus slow, however the >database itself is faster than the other two for the kind of searches >I need to do. Although you can call your own code from 4D and, I >presume, get around some of the problems, this is not documented in >the manuals you get from Acius. There is apparently some activity on >Compuserve, but I don't have access... I have used 4D since it came out and am not as negative. But in any case, with the correct optimization, Sybase should be faster than 4D in almost every search. >Oracle for Macintosh might be ok, but again the documentation has >problems. In this case there seems to be no 'administrative guide' to >tell you about the system tables, space management, backups and so on. >The documentation on calling Oracle from Hypercard, or from your own >code, seems complete but I haven't really explored it. My problem >with Oracle was that the speed seems too slow for my kind of searches. >I also had problems dropping indexes and recovering from glitches, >and the loader program crashed a few times. I have used both Oracle for Macintosh (Hypercard front end) and Oracle for 4D and have hated both. Had trouble with reliability. Was much too hard to use. >Sybase has, in contrast, been very easy to use. Here my problem has >been not lack of documentation, but that some of it doesn't print out >properly. Also there is a lot of it. The demo programs have been a >big help and showed me pretty much all I needed to get started-- there >are a few conflicts with Objective-C include files, but otherwise I >have had no trouble calling Sybase from Appkit programs. The loader >program supplied with Sybase is also *much* faster-- I loaded my test >database in about ten minutes, whereas each of the other databases >took over ten hours. Occasionally I have wedged myself by running out >of space, but enough searching through the manuals has always turned >up a solution. Sybase is a nice engine, but building an interface, even with IB is harder in my opinion. sybase needs to release their APT Workbench for the next. >I don't know much about maintenance issues, not having dealt with that >yet, but suspect Sybase will be far and away the easiest in terms of >backup and recovery from failures. 4D, for example, was unable to >read a record (media failure, I suspect) and prompted me to delete >it-- but left the index for that record, so I was stuck with a >glitched index. I also had problems with Oracle as I mentioned. >Sybase hasn't given me any problems yet, but I doubt they'd be any >worse. I have found sybase to be very reliable. No problems with data loss. I have lost data in both 4D and Oracle. >I am not planning on providing multiuser access so have nothing to say >in this regard. I seem to remember a previous posting mentioning >limitations on the 'free' Sybase bundled with the NeXT, but I don't >know for sure. I can't imagine the Mac would be any better, though. I think the license says "5 next users". You cannot access it from a different platform until sybase releases the network module mentioned above. In a multi-user situation, Sybase will be much faster than 4D. Oracle for the Mac cannot run multi-user unless you purchase the full Oracle engine for another platform (big bucks). >I'd also like to know who else has used Sybase and what kind of >experience they've had with it. I need to make a decision fairly soon >and would like to go for the NeXT despite the lack of a color screen. >How has Sybase performed under real use? I have nothing but good to say about sybase. I know of someone who runs multi-gig databases with sybase without problem. I would just be concerned about development productivity without front end tools. What I would really like is to run the Sybase engine, and use 4D on the mac as the front end. I also know of someone here at Stanford who has started building a front end to Sybase on the Next. It lets you add tables and columns, create default layouts, retrieve data, enter data, etc. It is pretty nice, but has a small problem with memory management that makes it crash once in a while. He may have some time freed up soon and be able to clean it up a little bit. I do not know how he feels about giving it out, but if you send me a request, I will forward it. Joe Liemandt liemandt@lindy.stanford.edu I bet the next NeXT is 88000 based. F I L L E R
hogenes@cstw29.prl.philips.nl (Geert Hogen Esch) (08/13/90)
I have a question concerning Sybase on the Next machine. Is there anyone out there who can tell me if Sybase can be used together with the User Interface of NextStep? (Are there Objective C bindings for Sybase?) I am looking for a friendly user interface for a database application. Any information is welcome. Regards, Geert.