On Wednesday 19 November 2003 03:26 pm, David A. Bandel wrote: > On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 13:47:51 -0600 > > "Andrew L. Gould" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Wednesday 19 November 2003 10:39 am, Matthew Carpenter wrote: > > > What is the key piece of MSOffice which is not readily available as > > > Open Source? > > [snip] > > > To say that a front-end for database administration or queries is a > > replacement for MS Access is to say that you haven't used all of the > > facets of MS Access: > > [snip Access plug] > > All the above said, Access is a _toy_. If you need a database (of more > than about 100 rows) you really need a SQL database like PostgreSQL. It > does all you mentioned and more. It also supports multiple users > (hundreds of simultaneous selects), supports transactions, foreign keys, > outer joins, and is fast (particularly searches on indexed columns). It > is also ACID. I'm putting together yet another database and front end > for a gov't agency here. They'll use a web browser. I'm still writing > the Perl script to provide the various queries and inserts/updates. But > it will get thousands of entries per year. > > If you want to see a _good_ web -> postgresql app, try SQL-Ledger > (http://www.sql-ledger.com/). > > Besides, OO supports ODBC queries of PostgreSQL. Poorly documented, > yes. But I have done it (once, and maybe never again; psql is a _lot_ > easier, especially if views are properly constructed.) > > Ciao, > > David A. Bandel
David, Your points are good. You're right, MS Access is not comparable to a **real** database server. I use PostgreSQL on the back-end for the reasons you mentioned. Access has, however, great utility as a flexible front-end for applications or fast, complex, adhoc analysis. Existing query front-ends in Linux usually fail the complexity criteria. Of course, I may be the whining exception. I didn't mean to be plugging MS Access -- I truly want a replacement. MS Access and tax software are the 2 items that will keep a copy of Window on my computer. (I encountered memory limit problems with Access via Crossover Office on a PC with 1.5GB RAM.) Okay, I'll get off my soap box now. Andrew Gould _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc -> http://smtp.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
