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

[James Elliott]

Thnaks for the pointers, Bret .... I will save your e-mail and look up the
things you suggest after the exams in a few weeks time.

James Elliott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bret Busby" <bret at busby.net>
To: <plug at plug.linux.org.au>
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 5:35 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:
>
> >
> > 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
> >
>
> Okay.
>
> MS Access is convenient for training people in basic relational database
> principles, and in basic SQL, and Oracle is useful for teaching a bit
> further, as is done at Murdoch.
>
> If you have learnt Oracle at Murdoch, it could be worth investigating
> PostgreSQL. There is, or was, an online book about PostgreSQL, which we
> downloaded and printed. Out of interest, PostgreSQL was the predecessor
> of Postgres, which (I believe) was the predecessor of Ingres (I may be
> wrong with the Ingres connection).
>
> If you have time, sometime, it could be worth looking at, and having a
> play with, the ADABAS database that comes with Star Office 5.2, if you
> have (or get) a copy of Star Office 5.2. It could be useful for a single
> user, workstation solution. I am aware of it, but have not done anything
> much with it.
>
> Both the pgaccess for PostgreSQL, and ADABAS, have a kind of MS ACCESS
> like interface (the GUI bit for setting up tables, etc)
>
> Oh, and, MS Access is apparently useful for things other than being a
> backend database. Anne had one job, where she created an MS Access front
> end, for an Informix backend.
>
> Foxpro was (from memory) a Borland product, then MS bought it from
> Borland, and incorporated Foxpro into Visual Studio 6. We had a look at
> it, for a conversion of a database that we had written, that needs
> rewriting, but, whilst Foxpro has a better backend than Access, it
> doesn't have what we wanted for a front end. I think the project would
> be better rewritten in Perl/PostgreSQL, but that is something that we
> have to decide.
>
> Oh, and, out of interest, Access is not just limited to being a single
> user, workstation DBMS. From memory, Eve Voysey told me that she had an
> Access system servicing 200 users. It was a while ago when she told me
> about it, so I may be slightly wrong in that. But, Access has lousy
> locking.
>
> --
> 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
> ....................................................
>
>