Re: A cumulative reply [Re: A minimal relational database in Debian?]
Copied from a friend that dealt with such antiquities
> On Mon, 27 Feb 2017 10:46:16 -0600
> Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> wrote:
>> On 02/27/2017 09:44 AM, Joe wrote:
>>> On Mon, 27 Feb 2017 08:53:30 -0600
>>> Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> wrote:
>>>> On 02/27/2017 07:43 AM, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
>>>>> LibreOffice Base is, AFAIK *not* a relational database, but just
>>>>> a -possibly graphical- user interface to one. Relational databases,
>>>>> as I know them, have no "fonts", for example.
>>>> I didn't claim it was ;/
>>>> I looked at it as it was install by default when I chose MATE as my
>>>> DE. The "font problem" was that I could not force its "help system"
>>>> to use a legible font size. Not being able to read its "help", I have
>>>> ABSOLUTELY NO idea of what capability it does/doesn't supply.
>>> It's sort of functionally nearly equivalent to MS Access on Windows 3
>>> i.e. 1992-ish.
>> I had forgotten about MS Access, probably 'cause the less I think about
>> that employer the better. It was later than dBaseII but aimed pretty
>> much at the same market. Having used dBaseII was considered "qualifying
>> experience" for the job.
Back around and before that time I use to play around with dbases using
.csv files
Then at a job they had huge datasets acquired that we only needed
tables/statistics or small portions of this data. At that time the
equipment at work were XT-at-DX-DX2 .... while at school we worked on
DEC-mainframes and some early SUN and SGI workstations.
After I convinced them to make an exception to the isolation rule and
hand me a modem so I can submit data to be cranched elsewhere and
processed by SPSS I could take the day off and get 10hrs of work done in
30' which unless I was paid for 10 I wouldn't do.
So finally they got me the first 386 in the building with windows and
Alpha4 to process all the dbf files. Alpha4 on DOS worked a zillion
times faster than Excell which had to use video memmory to show the
dataset and that took for ages to do. I had the only PC that had
windows and insisted in running on DOS. Out of romantic memory interest
if I found a copy of Alpha4 today I would get it. Down the street a
collaborating organization run SGI workstations and early SQL, that was
fun visiting like geeks at the MS people.
Then Access came out and I QUIT!!
Eventually both SPSS and SAS moved to sell MS windows products and if
they are not dead they deserve to.
But there is no such thing as fully relational database, it is all
partial. Anything that is not SQL based today is just as competitive as
cavemen would be against drones.
Even LibOffice can import .csv and .dbf files and make a more effective
database and data handling. It all has to do with sizes. GIS systems
and I am sure certain nosuchagencies may be using the most complex and
efficient dbase systems, but files of a few megabytes can be handled by
loffice
>>> It's slow and as buggy as hell. It can't handle update
>>> queries. I think it still needs Java for reporting. Apart from that,
>>> it's about the quickest way to assemble an ad-hoc database
>>> application.
>>> Free, that is, there are probably better commercial products. I use it
>>> for this reason, but also that it is cross-platform, you can literally
>>> take a Base file from a Linux machine and run it on a Windows machine,
>>> and vice versa (for close-numbered versions of LO).
>>> But a lot depends on what you want to do. Only you know your actual
>>> database needs. LO Base can use an internal database file or pretty
>>> much any client-server database or other ODBC server. For making user
>>> applications, it's worth considering.
>> Not if it throws barriers between me ant its documentation.
The bottom line is, if you worked with datasets back then, where a
spreadsheet was an ascii comma delimited file, and related several of
them into one system you can learn mySql in a 10th of the time it would
take a non-mathematician to learn.
--
"The most violent element in society is ignorance" rEG
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