Peter Alcibiades wrote:
Maybe I don't understand the question (does happen!) but isn't the answer
something like this.
1) Once data storage gets serious, more than a few thousand records, Rev
alone is not what to do it in. If you want to do the rest of the app in Rev,
you have to add a real database. This means sqlite, mysql (if you need multi
user and networked), Valentina, whatever.
The issue is not one card versus many, the issue is tab delimited fields
versus real databases.
True. If you need a database, Rev has connections available for a wide
variety of them, including SQLite, MySQL, Valentina, Oracle, and ODBC
for everything else.
But as Mark Smith noted, you may be pleasantly surprised by what you can
do with storing data in custom property sets. One could use text files
as well, but I tend to use properties so I can have metadata containing
field names, types, and sizes in a separate property set from the data
itself. I regularly work with data sets from 100 to 50,000 records this
way.
Using "repeat for each..." I can search at the rate of 98,000 records
per second for a single-criterion search, and more than 34,000 records
per second for a three-criteria search. I can extract a single column
at the rate of about a million records a second (for field 7; 1.4
million for field 1), and return only unique values in that column at
about three-quarter-million records per second. And that's using a
generalized (read "slower than is possible") method on a modest Mac. On
a top-of-the-line Wintel box I would imagine one can nearly double that.
For smaller data sets of about a thousand records or so, one can still
use cards if desired. I prefer the flexibility of separating code from
presentation, but for quick-n-dirty solutions using cards can be convenient.
Being able to handle data up to 50,000 records in Rev alone is not bad,
and having the connectivity to a variety of well-honed DBMS engines is
even better.
2) If data storage retrieval and reports is the primary or only need, its
incredibly much quicker to do that sort of thing to some level in Filemaker,
but it may not come for your OS and has other limitations. But you do get
point and click relational database and report construction.
This is a real issue about Rev + sqlite, but its also an issue about
alternatives to Rev + sqlite.
FileMaker is in a class by itself for ease of use, and I've seen a few
projects done in Rev, even commercial ones, that might well have
benefited from having been done with FMP instead. It's a good tool, and
if it does what a project needs it can be a very good choice.
3) Even if you can live with tab delimited files for storage, getting reports
out of them in Rev is not much fun So you have to add Quartam. Or Perl or
Awk. This too is much easier and quicker in FM. But the same comment applies
to the alternatives to Rev.
True, reporting in most 4GLs is done through commercial add-ons. VB
uses Crystal Reports, HyperCard used Reports Data Pro, and Rev uses Quartam.
That said, I've rolled my own reporting as needed, since my apps tend to
have specialized needs, and they've been acceptable in both cost and
performance. Though I don't have the direct experience to say with
certainty, I would venture to guess that rolling one's one reporting
tools would be more costly in VB by at least a factor of two, and
perhaps an order of magnitude in Java.
Is there a gui package (except the database packages with end user
pretensions like FM) that does data storage and retrieval and reporting much
better than Rev? Most seem to be a lot worse. Python for instance, I think
you have to use a real database for just about any storage. Nothing is
perfect.
This is my own case: 15-20k records of sales during the fiscal year. I
accumulate them (with some trepidation) into an external tab delimited text
file. Then we need to go through and extract sales by product by month for
some 200+ items. After a prolonged meditation on switch, if and repeat, and
the prospect of creating a 200 x 12 matrix of fields with each one
individually named and scripted, I broke out "Effective Awk Programming".
Its like reaching for a plane, after trying to get a smooth finish with a
chisel. But chisels have their uses too, and are often the right tool for
the job. Don't try doing a mortise with a plane!
Well, please correct if this is not right.
I think you summed it up well. If one needs a database, use a database.
If FMP, or even Bento (FileMaker Inc.'s new ultra-simple DB product)
will do the trick, it'd be a shame not to use it.
And if one needs more flexibility with the UI than FileMaker
accommodates, Rev can be used for tens of thousands of records natively
or take advantage of its connectivity options for millions of records
with any of its many DBMS engines.
--
Richard Gaskin
Managing Editor, revJournal
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