🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 25 Jan 2003 07:26:41 +0100, X04001 wrote:

>Hi,
>I would like to build an application which uses a database. however, this
>application should be sold in the future...so i would like to know which
>database :
>
>- is the best to support
>- is the easiest to use/program/develop
>- is the cheapest when we need to sell application with it
>
>I have some ideas about database like Access, MySQL, DBase,PostGre... but i
>need some expertise from people...
>
>My Application should be a client/server application and maybe use ODBC (i
>have BCB5 pro)

I'm hardly an expert, but if you want client server, forget about file-based
databases like Access, dBase, and Paradox.

Most of the major SQL-based client/server databases (DB2, Oracle, Sybase,
etc.) work well.  Most are also very expensive, and would pad the cost of
whatever you're going to sell if it has to include the server software. 
Interbase also seems to work well, in my limited testing of it.  There's a
free version, and an offshoot of that version called Firebird.  You can
distribute Firebird free of charge.

If you intend to supply data with your application which must remain secure,
that changes things a bit.  You can't secure the data of any of these
client/server setups, unless the OS can do it for you.  In my case, where
distributing a couple gigabytes of proprietary data is central to the
product, which must run on completely insecure OS's such as Win9x/Me, the
only viable option was Access.  Paradox and dBase allow password protection
as well, but complicated SQL performance in BDE is pretty bad, and Paradox
has its own network storage issues anyway (such as requiring that all clients
accessing a table refer to it by the same path name, sans drive letter, and
not being able to access a table stored on an OS/2 server machine from a
Win2K client machine at all).

If the data will be the customers, then using and distributing Firebird with
the program would probably work very well.  It uses a single container file
for the entire database, and, unlike Access, that file tends to be very
small, and it stays that way when data isn't actually added.


--
 - Mike

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