by We have a vertical market application written in Clipper, which we need to
rewrite for Windows.
Although the application is complex, the file sizes do not reach the levels
that would require an 'industrial strength' database, like PROGRESS, Sybase,
etc. In addition, the market for this application do not really understand
the concept of paying run-time licence fees for the program. For a number
of different reasons, we do not want to use FoxPro for Windows. It is time
for us to get away from the xBase language.
At first look, Visual Basic with the Access Engine seems to be a logical
choice for this. It is very easy to develop a very professional user
interface with the GUI tools and there is a very wide range of third party
custom controls to further enhance it, if necessary.
The Access Engine appears reasonably robust, though perhaps not as fast as
we are used to (version 2 with Rushmore should inprove this). Although we
are just playing at present with the SQL side of VB, we have been impressed
so far with the speed of some of the queries we have tested. For example,
pulling 60 or so records spread right across a 12000 record table was
virtually immediate. It also has commits and rollback - something we
consider essential for a database. It also appears that drivers are available
from companies like Phoenix that allow you access a wide range of database
servers.
However, before we leap of the pier and commit ourselves to several months
of programming effort, we would be most interested to hear from any of you
who have done a similar type of application using this product.
Specifically, answers to following questions would be most helpful -
1. Are there any problems you know of with the robustness of the Access
Engine? This is the most critical point for us.
2. Is what we are considering a practical option? And if not, why not.
3. Although the application will have a considerable number of tables
spread across several databases, none of these tables will be very
large (maximum of 10000 records in the main table). Can Access handle
this easily?
4. Should we be considering any other options (other than FoxPro), that
would not require a run-time licence fee?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Tks in advance.
...............................................
. Clive Carpenter - CC Software - Joannesburg .
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. SLMR 2.1a . My other computer is a CRAY laptop.
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