🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec21.003958.20064@ultb.isc.rit.edu> jek5036@ultb.isc.rit.edu (J.E. King) writes:
>
>Seems as though everybody uses Filemaker Pro 2.0v2 and 4th Dimension.. Some
>people have mentioned FoxBase/Mac.. what ever happened to Double Helix?
>How do people feel about DH?  As a consultant I recommend DH for most
>applications because of it's flexibility and power.  Other comments on DH?
>
>I'm just interested to know how many people even know about DH.

Jim ...
   
   Odesta released Helix Express a few months back. It is essentially
the same product as Double Helix, with a few additions, mainly:

     * you can now "store" documents from other applications within
        your database, and open them directly from inside HE

     * several window-styles for your Views, including "Invisible", 
        which is handy for doing large postings (you no longer have
        to wait for the window to draw on-screen) - Custom Windows

     * New calculation tiles -> 11 in all, including "LowerCase,"
        and 10 document-specific tiles

     * User selectable indexes and Custom Icon Names - both for use
        in Custom Mode

     * Several new Keyboard equivalents

     * True/False query optimization, new cursors, Defined/Undefined
        options for Queries

As regards your other questions: I don't know how many people use
DH or HE -> it seems 4D and FoxBase Mac are the two most heavily
used relational DBMS on the Macintosh platform. Most Mac users are
probably more than well served with a flat-file system like FMPro.
And, my sense is that a lot of serious db programmers are turned-off
by DH/HE's "iconic" programming environment. All of that said, I
am entirely pleased with Helix Express. For my small business it has
more than paid for itself over the years - and I haven't had to hire
a programmer to set up or tweak my system for me. The beauty of the
program is its ease of customization (no programming language 
required), and its rock-solid code -> I haven't lost a single byte
of data in 6 years.

DH/HE has its niche out there in Mac-land. Those that like it
seem to REALLY like it. I for one am glad it's there.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim McKee                    \  "The reward is in the journey."
jmckee@world.std.com         /  On the Red Road with my brothers and all my
jmckee@silver.lcs.mit.edu    \  relations. Ho! Mitakuye Oyasin
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

In article <1992Dec21.003958.20064@ultb.isc.rit.edu> jek5036@ultb.isc.rit.edu (J.E. King) writes:
>
>Seems as though everybody uses Filemaker Pro 2.0v2 and 4th Dimension.. Some
>people have mentioned FoxBase/Mac.. what ever happened to Double Helix?
>How do people feel about DH?  As a consultant I recommend DH for most
>applications because of it's flexibility and power.  Other comments on DH?

First of all, Odesta Corporation went out of business almost a year ago, and
the Double Helix product line was purchased and a new company called Helix
Technologies was started to continue to support and develop Double Helix. Just
recently, the next generation of Double Helix (called "Helix Express") was 
released which included all sorts of new features (that I won't go into now)
and some much-needed bug fixes.

Now that that's cleared up...my comments about Helix. Don't bother. Helix can't
do anything that any (if not every) other Mac database can't do. Much (~50%) of
Helix's source is almost 10 years old and completely unintelligible to humans.
As more and more changes happen in the Machintosh world, Helix gets further and
further out of date - with little or no chance of ever catching up. The 
management at Helix Technologies can't seem to grasp the concept that the world
around them is changing and they need to take their blinders off and at least 
try to get back in the race. 

Joey Gray
geek@casbah.acns.nwu.edu

PS - If you couldn't tell, I have a disliking of the company because of the way
I was (and still am) treated. I used to work on Helix, both before and after 
Odesta went down in flames. Never have I seen a more talented, yet severly
misguided group of individuals.

In article <1992Dec22.223620.8948@news.acns.nwu.edu> geek@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Myrland Gray) writes:
>In article <1992Dec21.003958.20064@ultb.isc.rit.edu> jek5036@ultb.isc.rit.edu (J.E. King) writes:
>>
>>Seems as though everybody uses Filemaker Pro 2.0v2 and 4th Dimension.. Some
>>people have mentioned FoxBase/Mac.. what ever happened to Double Helix?
>>How do people feel about DH?  As a consultant I recommend DH for most
>>applications because of it's flexibility and power.  Other comments on DH?
>
>First of all, Odesta Corporation went out of business almost a year ago, and
>the Double Helix product line was purchased and a new company called Helix
>Technologies was started to continue to support and develop Double Helix. Just
>recently, the next generation of Double Helix (called "Helix Express") was 
>released which included all sorts of new features (that I won't go into now)
>and some much-needed bug fixes.
>
>Now that that's cleared up...my comments about Helix. Don't bother. Helix can't
>do anything that any (if not every) other Mac database can't do. Much (~50%) of
>Helix's source is almost 10 years old and completely unintelligible to humans.
>As more and more changes happen in the Machintosh world, Helix gets further and
>further out of date - with little or no chance of ever catching up. The 
>management at Helix Technologies can't seem to grasp the concept that the world
>around them is changing and they need to take their blinders off and at least 
>try to get back in the race. 
>
>PS - If you couldn't tell, I have a disliking of the company because of the way
>I was (and still am) treated. I used to work on Helix, both before and after 
>Odesta went down in flames. Never have I seen a more talented, yet severly
>misguided group of individuals.


Everyone has their own slant on this, and I am not disagreeing with Joey
Gray. However, that said, the value of a program depends on what the user
needs it to do. I believe that most people aren't running Fortune 500
companies, and also, they don't want to have to learn a database programming
language to get a system up-and-running to drive their small business,
non-profit or organization. Helix is an extremely powerful relational
database that is extraordinarily easy for non-programmers to work with.
Easy doesn't mean "wimpish." True, I would not want to run an airline
with it. But, again, for most people, it's probably actually more than
they need. And, it works. I trust my data (which equals my business
survival) to this program, and have for 6 years. And, I have found the
folks at Odesta (now Helix Technologies) extremely helpful and responsive.
Once when I needed a way to suppress Totals fields from printing on each
page of a report, a guy at Odesta stayed late on a Friday to create a
relation containing examples of how to do this, and sent it out to me
Fedex -> I had it on Monday morning. I haven't ever seen THAT kind of
user support in any other company I have dealt with.

So, for people who are advanced programmers, developers, or whatever,
Helix Express may not be your bag. But, for us folks who don't give a
damn (or much of one) about why or how a program does what it does,
Helix Express just plain works.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim McKee                    \  "The reward is in the journey."
jmckee@world.std.com         /  On the Red Road with my brothers and all my
jmckee@silver.lcs.mit.edu    \  relations. Ho! Mitakuye Oyasin
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

A word from a programmer on Helix Express:

I have programmed in C, FORTRAN, COBOL, VAX MACRO-32 and I'm learning
the 680x0 assembler instruction set.

But I still enjoy Helix - just because it's object oriented doesn't mean
it's a wimp!  To me, it's a much more sensible than other packages that
require you to learn yet another "language"...

Just my $.02

			Bret McCarty
			Digital Equipment Corp
			Colorado Springs CO

It's now Helix Tachnologies "Helix Express".  I have had it since 1984 and it is
the only database I'd recommend to my small-business clients, especially if they
want to maintain it in the future.  I've never had data problems and we're
talking eight years here!  As for technical support I have had no problems,
mirabile dictu!  Rumour has it that the "management" of Odesta just lost it
and ran aground - they ignored Helix in the end to concentrate on that
silly "Geo-query" product.  True, as in all things, there are problems
even now, but Helix has been around longer than any database product
for the Mac.  Also, its speed (I think MacWorld or MacUser) is faster than
other relational db's.

Furthermore - there's a(n?) HELIX LISTSERVER!

Contact Peter Yamamoto <pjyamamo@watdragon.waterloo.edu> for information on
how to subscribe.

				Regards,

				Bohdan
















=====================================================================
 
Bohdan Peter Rekshynskyj
 
Consultant                     
 
Compuserve:  72576.1754@compuserve.com


                              
All promulgations are my own.  No corporate entity has authorization
to represent me.
 
Imprimatur.						Nihil obstat.
 
=====================================================================

In article <1992Dec30.200953.25124@shearson.com> brekshyn@shearson.com writes:
>It's now Helix Tachnologies "Helix Express".  I have had it since 1984 and
>it is the only database I'd recommend to my small-business clients, especially
>if they want to maintain it in the future.

Actually, it's Helix Technologies. Future? Helix? *hack* --cough-- (*&^*%*&
NOT! Helix is bound to die a quick and painful death (IMHO) in the not too
distant future.

>I've never had data problems and we're
>talking eight years here!  As for technical support I have had no problems,
>mirabile dictu!  Rumour has it that the "management" of Odesta just lost it
>and ran aground - they ignored Helix in the end to concentrate on that
>silly "Geo-query" product.

Incorrect. Both GeoQuery and DataDesk which used to be distributed by (but not
written by) Odesta were dropped quite a bit before it "ran aground." The money
pit that supposedly caused the downfall was something else (essentially a mac
front end to a mainframe database).

>True, as in all things, there are problems
>even now, but Helix has been around longer than any database product
>for the Mac.

Yeah, and IBM has been around longer than Apple so they must be better, right?!
What kind of twisted logic is this? They've been around longer because they
started doing it first. The fact that they are still around does indicate that
they have been either doing something better than others or something different
than others. And it seems that from the general reaction to my other postings
here that it is the latter. I'll grant that Helix does do some pretty cool
stuff, and sometimes it even does it quickly. I don't really think it's the
worst thing in the world (as I may seem to suggest some times) - I just think
that some people are so attracted by the "simplicity" of Helix that they don't
realize it's just plain "simple-minded." It's not extensible (as is 4D), it's
not multi-platform (as are most other mac rdb's), and the list goes on...

>Also, its speed (I think MacWorld or MacUser) is faster than
>other relational db's.

I don't know what year you're reading this from. According to the last set of
tests done by MacUser, Helix was either in second or third -- out of four. To
top it all off, when the new management saw this, they were pleased! Granted,
not being last is something to be slightly proud of, but don't you think that
since speed is *such* an issue with some people wouldn't you like to place an
emphasis on this in your development group to make it even faster?! The point
I think I'm trying to get across is that Helix is not the best database, or
even the best database it could be. With some *major* work, it could be worlds
better, but the upper management was (and still is) unwilling to invest in the
product to allow for some much-needed improvements.

As a final note, if Helix Technologies were a really stable company with a
solid future why would around 25% of its original staff leave the company in
the first 9 months of business? This may be acceptable for a large corporation
that has a lot of redundancy, but not for a company already stretched thin.

Joey Gray
geek@casbah.acns.nwu.edu


>All promulgations are my own.  No corporate entity has authorization
>to represent me.

In article <1992Dec31.165918.19645@news.acns.nwu.edu> geek@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Myrland Gray) writes:
>Actually, it's Helix Technologies. Future? Helix? *hack* --cough-- (*&^*%*&
>NOT! Helix is bound to die a quick and painful death (IMHO) in the not too
>distant future.

What I hear Joey saying is that the code is old and unpleasant to
work with, and that, therefore, the product will die.  If you use
this argument, then you'll have to give up a lot of other software
(like Unix, maybe)!  Just because code is challenging to work with
doesn't mean you can't maintain and enhance it.  One of the difficulties
of being an engineer is that you know all the weak points of a technology.
It's refreshing to hear success stories about how people are actually
making use of the technology to do real work.

The other key point that Joey hits on is what management decides to
do with the technology and the product.  Any technology-based
company has to make difficult tradeoffs about whether to give the
customers what they ask for (assuming the customer is always right),
or to figure out what the customer needs (assuming the customer
is always wrong).  It has been my experience that the Helix gurus
have always placed an emphasis on figuring out how to give the
customer functionality that fits into the Helix system with maximum
internal consistency.  IMHO, that has led to a very consistent
product that doesn't have all the expected features.

Joey describes the other Odesta product as
>...(essentially a mac
>front end to a mainframe database).

I think what he's referring to is what we now call "Open ODMS", which
is much more than a front end to a database.  At Odesta Systems
Corporation, we develop client-server technologies to provide
document management and workflow management solutions.  We
chose an open client-server configuration using standard SQL databases
(like Sybase and Rdb) because we recognized that customers don't
always like having their data in a closed, proprietary system.  Our
client software ("design mode" as well as end-user) is written to
be portable across Mac, Windows, and Motif platforms.

--daniel rabe
(helix programmer in a previous life)

Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, and do not represent Odesta,
Odesta Systems, or Helix Technologies.

>Furthermore - there's a(n?) HELIX LISTSERVER!
>
>Contact Peter Yamamoto <pjyamamo@watdragon.waterloo.edu> for information on
>how to subscribe.

It is a simple mailing list locally maintained.
It is not a LISTSERV mailing list.

And the (politiocally) correct email address is:
pjyamamoto@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca

Peter