Re: Please recommend me a DB!

In article <4mq2ia$i2a_at_mn5.swip.net>, magnus.pettersson_at_powerage.se says...
>
>Don't even think about non-SQL databases like Progress. Pick Progress and
 you're
>stuck ! No support from 3:rd party vendors etc....
>
>BTW - use an SQL database. This is _industry standard_ for realtional
 databases.
>ODBC support should be considered.
>...
>but C is not a fast way to produce programmes.
>I'm not very comfortable with "4:th generation languages", as they seem to be
>_too_ coarse. When I used them I had do do some C programming anyway.
>On the other hand - my applications wasn't only accessing Sybase, but
 operating
>systems, transaction monotors, terminal emulators, BLOB processing etc... as
 well.
>Nowadays I use C++ and SmallTalk a lot. I use prefabricated class-libraries
 for
>relational databases (and other things like user interface too...), as well as
writing my own class libs....

Progress is the number 1 pick of VARS for about 5 years straight now - for good reasons. You almost never have to drop out of the 4GL to "C" to get the job done - I've only done it once in 4 years. Using Progress in Windows, its easy to make any kind of DLL call, or use DDE, which are loads easier than writing something in C. In UNIX, you can easily incoporate schell scripts into you app, which basically opens up everything available in UNIX. You can even use SQL to access Progress from any "C" language (or within the 4GL itself). While his comment about 3rd party support is close, there are a number of vendors that DO support Progress - ODBC drivers, Report Writers, etc.  Furthermore, version 8 can use VBX's, and there is a 3rd party market for business components and objects to use with V8. I've been using Progress and Sybase both for the last few months - Progress may not be as robust a database, but Progress is miles easier to setup, configure, and maintain. Seems to have better performance, too, but I have no benchmarks yet.

So... If you are a C/C++ head, and love to write "write-once, read-never" code, Progress may not be for you. On the other hand, if you want a robust 4GL, would like the database and the language to come the same company, want multi-platform support (UNIX (most flavors), Windows, NT, AS/400, VMS, Novell NLM, etc.), and want multiple database support (Progress, Oracle, Sybase, DB2/400, C-ISAM, MS SQL Server, RMS, etc.), you should consider Progress.

This was not a paid company announcement - Just a satisfied developer. All opinions are my own, and not necessarially that of my company.

John Coleman Received on Mon May 13 1996 - 00:00:00 CEST