database management systems, cont. (55)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Thu, 9 Feb 89 21:57:02 EST


Humanist Mailing List, Vol. 2, No. 580. Thursday, 9 Feb 1989.


(1) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 89 09:00:16 PST (7 lines)
From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: VAX via Hypercard?

(2) Date: Wed, 8 FEB 89 09:49:12 GMT (29 lines)
From: LOU@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK
Subject: dbms usage

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 89 09:00:16 PST
From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: VAX via Hypercard?

Oracle is now selling a Mac front end for distributed data bases.
At the Macworld Expo in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago it
was available for $99.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------32----
Date: Wed, 8 FEB 89 09:49:12 GMT
From: LOU@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK

Belated thanks to everyone who responded to my request for
information on DBMS usage. I am drafting the 'more detailed
questionnaire' threatened - indeed you may have already received
one - and will post fuller results in due course. For the moment,
I can report that from about thirty responses, I culled almost as
many different packages in use, which is interesting, and shows
that however much consensus there may be among 'database experts',
the humanist on the clapham omnibus is just as esoteric and
eccentric as we'd all always hoped! Packages so far mentioned, for
the record, are (in alphabetic order)...

4th Dimension; Advanced Revelation (2); AskSam (2); dBaseIII+;
dBaseIV; Excel; File Express; FYI3000p; Hypercard (3); Notebook II
(3); Nutshell; Omnis Quartz; pc-file III+; Prime Information (2);
ProCite; Reflex (2); Spires (3); SQL/DS (2); Superfile; System
1032; Unify; WP Notebook

Noting the absence of (most) major mainframe packages (anyone heard
of Oracle? Ingres? IMS? IDMS? SIR? DB2? Informix?) I wonder if this
constituency just doesn't use them, or whether it's assuming
there's nothing new to be said about them. Don't hold back! If the
package you use doesn't appear on the above list, please let me
know about it. Software evaluation is only partly about describing
what's available: it's also important to know what people actually
use, and what they think of it.