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Hi All

I have just finished a very small and personal application (one table) that I use in tracking my visit schedules using your SQLExpress with SQLite DBMS. I have been programming in xbase dialet since the days of Ashontate dBase II/III then to Clipper summer 87 before finally landed in Xbase++. I had never program in SQL only ISAM and Clien/Server with ADS.

My latest exprience with SQLExpress is that things are not the way developers out there thought. You may not know, developers have a mis-informed opinions about ODBC in general and since SQLEXPRESS product is entirely based on ODBC, that means same for SQLExpress. I was once one of them.

These include:

a) SQL/SQLExpress applications are much more difficult to develop than ISAM.
b) SQL/SQLExpress applications require much more codes than ISAM
c) ODBC and by extension, SQLExpress applications are much SLOWER in performance than ISAM applications.

These afformentioned reasons may be the reasons why a lot Xbase++ developers refuse to embrace SQLExpress. I was one of them before. But can you blame us ? NO. Even when I did not try it, I was convinced that ODBC is generally slower in performance when I read in Prof Carry Jensen and Loy Anderson BOOK tittled "Advantage DataBase Server - Official Guide" chapter 16 "WHO SHOULD USE THE ODBC DRIVER"

He wrote and I quote

There are two groups of users who should use the Advantage ODBC Driver. The first group consists of those developers who are using development environments for which there are no alternative drivers. For example, if you are using a proprietary development environment that does not support the ACE (Advantage Client Engine) API, Java, .NET, ADO, or VCL, the Advantage ODBC Driver is your fallback solution.

For those developers for whom there is an alternative to ODBC, ODBC is usually a poor choice for connecting to Advantage. This is because the alternative solutions offer more options than does ODBC. In short, ODBC is the lowest common denominator for data access.

The truth I later find out is that SQLExpress applications perform by far better than ISAM and equally much more stable.

We have the responsibility and duty to expose these facts to the Xbase++ community in order to enhance its acceptability of SQLExpress and ODBC. For me with the availability of SQLExpress, I still wonder why Alaska is investing so much resources and efforts in PGDBE instead of other technologies that will better the life of Xbase++ community.

Thanks

Joe

There are many misconceptions and misunderstandings when it comes to the proper choice for database management.

I deal with these constantly due to the fact that I must support many customer applications and also advise customers on a path forward.

I agree with you that there are Xbase++ developers who are afraid of using a third-party product, such as SqlExpress, but I don't necessarily agree with your conclusions about why they chose a different path. I have worked on many hybrids over the years, some having used as many as 4 different database solutions in the same application. I worked with a customer who used SqlExpress when writing some new applications but stayed with ADSDBE for his legacy enterprise application. Eventually, that legacy app had to also work with SqlServer and a lot of SQL and he found that, due to much of the data-driven design of his app, the Alaska ODBCDBE served his needs much better because it integrated so well with his data-driven architecture. SqlExpress would have been a much more difficult implementation and performance was becoming less of an issue due to the nature of his application and also improvements in hardware and networks.

In very large, enterprise level, legacy applications it's all about how quickly the code can be written and how easy is it to maintain. SqlExpress is a perfectly fine and probably best solution for some applications and should be taken seriously as a option if performance is critical and the programmer is comfortable with an object-oriented database architecture.

I developed a utility application called SqlQuery and I have chosen to not to use SqlExpress, but instead have incorporated ADSDBE, ODBCDBE and PGDBE to keep the design simple and to take advantage of the database engine architecture of Xbase++. This has significant advantages over an object-oriented database when designing a utility program that must work with dozens of different data sources. The fact that the ADSDBE and ODBCDBE database engines can work reliably in both SQL and ISAM mode is a major advantage.

On the other hand, I totally agree with you that I have not yet found a case where PGDBE is a good solution. The PGDBE has not lived up to its promises and I agree that it is a huge disappointment, especially after being promised for so many years.

Hi Roger

Perfect response, I agree with you.

Joe