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- From: dporter@rat.csc.calpoly.edu (Diana Porter)
- Subject: Paradox vs. Access
- Message-ID: <1992Dec13.211539.19352@rat.csc.calpoly.edu>
- Date: Sun, 13 Dec 92 21:15:39 GMT
- Organization: The Rat's Nest
- Distribution: us
- Lines: 52
-
- I have been Beta testing both Access and Paradox for Windows and here's
- my initial impressions - I'd be interested in hearing other's comments or
- corrections if I am wrong...
-
-
- Access's strength is in it's ease of use. Wizards, Cue Cards and the Graphical
- QBE stand out. But you begin noticing Accesss's weaknesses once you go beyond
- simple database creation and begin some advanced application development. My
- guess is that Microsoft wanted to get Access out the door before Paradox/Win
- and on people's desktops (hence the $99 bait). I'm hoping that Microsoft will
- work on the language and developer's issues in future upgrades and add more
- Wizards for end users. Specifically what I don't like is that you call a
- macro from a button (with few options: On Push...etc) and then you have to
- go to the macros section to write the macro. Not the object oriented feel
- I would have liked to see. The language is lacking fundatmental things...you
- do not have a Create Table or Drop Table statement -- it must be done in the
- interface. This is a severe limitation for a module which needs to create
- and drop temporary tables. Access has a 4MB transaction limit (meaning that
- if you have a transaction that requires more than 4MB, forget it.) We
- came across this testing a global replace on a text field with a 100,000
- row table). With ODBC (as it is now) you must create your
- table in Access and then export to SQL Server -- you cannot create a table
- on SQL Server via Access directly. We're beginning our performance tests
- of the products, but my guess is that Access will be slower. Also, I still
- don't understand why everything is bundled into one .MDB file - reminds me
- of R:Base and the corruption problems we had. I hope I'm wrong about this
- with Access, but we'll be testing the reliability as well.
-
- Borland has really done their homework with Paradox/Windows and ObjectPal.
- The developer can really create some awesome applications. Lots of events
- (methods) to choose from and there is a definite OO feel to this application.
- Since Pdox/Win is not out yet, I'll just give an overview of my impressions
- without too much detail but the areas that need definite improvement is the
- QBE! Access is outstanding in comparison. Borland needs to focus on the
- ease of use and beef up the QBE. If they do that over the next upgrades, I
- see Paradox/Win as a really full database application environment. IDAPI is
- their equivalent to ODBC and proposed as a SAG CLI. Anyone have more info
- on IDAPI vs ODBC? IDAPI apparently addresses a navigational data access
- method wheras ODBC doesn't (?) Overall, I like Paradox except for beginning
- users and simple applications, Access wins.
-
- Anyway, in summary I see that one product excels where the other doesn't.
- I'm waiting for Pdox/Win to come out before jumping into Access just
- because they came out earlier. Borland has quite a competitor now, though....
-
- I'm interested in any thoughts others have on this topic....
-
- Diana Porter
- Cal Poly State University
- San Luis Obispo, California
-
-
-