[plug] ZDNet Australia News & Tech OS SCO takes Linux to Murdoch Univers ity (fwd)

[James Elliott]

Maybe I was a bit quick and glib with my terms.  There are many "flat"
databases out there, and that was what I meant to exclude.

Sure there are other relational databases, but if you were limited to a 13
week course and wanted to teach something that Management had at least heard
about and is readily available, I think Access and Oracle are two very good
examples of different ends of the user scale.

Every network I have been involved in setting up and maintaining, mainly
nickel mines and schools, have Access and also software like Surpac which
you will find on every mine site, and which is based on Access ... so,
despite the aversion to Windows, my training in Access has been very useful
.... AND ... I don't think it is the sort of thing that would be easy to
self-teach.  Some of the ones you listed might have been interesting to
learn, but so far I have not come across them.

James Elliott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bret Busby" <bret at busby.net>
To: <plug at plug.linux.org.au>
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: [plug] ZDNet Australia News & Tech OS SCO takes Linux to
Murdoch Univers ity (fwd)


> On Thu, 10 Oct 2002, James Elliott wrote:
>
> >
> > The only Microsoft package that got a mention in the whole course was
Access
> > in the Unit on Databases ... that's OK because Orcale is the king of the
> > huge, distributed databases and Access is the best, if not the only,
> > relational database for standalone PC's
> >
> >
>
> Perhaps, you can qualify that, by explaining how the following are
> neither relational databases for workstations (the more correct term
> than "standalone PC's"), nor better than Access.
> PostgreSQL
> Foxpro
> Gupta SQL Windows Solo
> Paradox
> Adabas (as used in Star Office 5.2)
>
> as just a few alternatives. Foxpro, for example, is far more powerful,
> and has better record locking.
>
> And, who crowned "Orcale", "king of the huge distributed databases"? Was
> that you? How do you qualify that?
>
> Or, is this all just a student professing knowledge?
>
> "Drink deep,
> or taste not the Pierian Spring.
> A little learning is a dangerous thing.
> There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
> and drinking largely sobers us again."
> - Alexander Pope; "An Essay on Criticism"
>
> --
> Bret Busby
> Armadale
> West Australia
> ..............
>
> "So once you do know what the question actually is,
>  you'll know what the answer means."
> - Deep Thought,
>   Chapter 28 of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
> - Douglas Adams, 1988
> ....................................................
>