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The Placid Casual · May 16, 2004, 07:17 PM

Will such a product ever be made?

Just wondering...

deharlow · May 16, 2004, 07:52 PM

Originally posted by The Placid Casual:
Will such a product ever be made?

Just wondering...

Nope, check out Servoy or FileMaker, Access is too closely tied to the Windows OS.

Daniel

The Placid Casual · May 16, 2004, 08:54 PM

Originally posted by deharlow:
Nope, check out Servoy or FileMaker, Access is too closely tied to the Windows OS.

Daniel

I have been trying out a few DBMS things recently and can't find one to compete with Access or even oracle on the PC...

I have tried Frontbase, Servoy, 4D etc but they just don't cut it for me.

What part of Access is too closely PC related? Surely it is no more PC related than the office suite and they work fine on OS X?

I really need queries in SQL, PHP etc so I don't think Filemaker really cuts it...

deharlow · May 17, 2004, 03:45 AM

Originally posted by The Placid Casual:
I have been trying out a few DBMS things recently and can't find one to compete with Access or even oracle on the PC...

I have tried Frontbase, Servoy, 4D etc but they just don't cut it for me.

What part of Access is too closely PC related? Surely it is no more PC related than the office suite and they work fine on OS X?

I really need queries in SQL, PHP etc so I don't think Filemaker really cuts it...

The Jet database engine that drives Access.

As for other databases have you looked at iAnywhere http://www.ianywhere.com/ or MySQL or Openbase? The combination of iAnywhere included Servoy is pretty powerful.

If none of those work just get Oracle for OS X then.

Daniel

The Placid Casual · May 17, 2004, 06:18 AM

Originally posted by deharlow:
The Jet database engine that drives Access.

As for other databases have you looked at iAnywhere http://www.ianywhere.com/ or MySQL or Openbase? The combination of iAnywhere included Servoy is pretty powerful.

If none of those work just get Oracle for OS X then.

Daniel

Thanks for the info.

typoon · May 17, 2004, 09:09 AM

Well I actually spoke to a Microsoft guy at Macworld a while back in NY. He actually stated they would never make Access for Mac because Filemaker is the dominant one for the Mac. And that it's better.

mbryda · May 17, 2004, 09:39 AM

Originally posted by The Placid Casual:
I have been trying out a few DBMS things recently and can't find one to compete with Access or even oracle on the PC...

Actually, Access is quite crappy on the PC. It doesn't like large DB's well at all.

What part of Access is too closely PC related? Surely it is no more PC related than the office suite and they work fine on OS X?

The JET database engine, it's very interweaved with the OS (as are most M$ things)

I really need queries in SQL, PHP etc so I don't think Filemaker really cuts it...

Have you checked FM7? Supposedly it can do SQL queries natively.

selowitch · May 17, 2004, 12:34 PM

How about using FMP7 for your desktop databases, MySQL or LassoMySQL for your web backend (via Apache) and Lasso/LDML for middleware?

Angus_D · May 17, 2004, 12:42 PM

Why on earth would anyone use Lassoo?

Use WebObjects for your high end stuff!

selowitch · May 17, 2004, 01:40 PM

Originally posted by Angus_D:
Why on earth would anyone use Lasso?

Use WebObjects for your high end stuff!

In my case, the client uses FMP for their desktop database as well as for the source of the web data, hence I had to pick a middleware solution that was compatible with that.

WebObjects doesn't work directly with FMP, does it?

The Placid Casual · May 17, 2004, 06:44 PM

Thanks for the suggestions... I'll be trying a few out in the next couple of weeks.

I have for the moment however settled on SQL Anywhere 9, so far it works like a charm for what I need.

deharlow · May 17, 2004, 11:35 PM

Originally posted by selowitch:
In my case, the client uses FMP for their desktop database as well as for the source of the web data, hence I had to pick a middleware solution that was compatible with that.

WebObjects doesn't work directly with FMP, does it?

Check out http://www.360works.com/woof.html it is a plugin for using WO with FM6. I have done several projects with it and it works great.

Daniel

CambAngst · May 19, 2004, 01:06 PM

So is there actually an SQL-based query-builder sort of thing in FileMaker now? The last time I used FileMaker (which was admittedly a long time ago), queries were treated like some sort of dynamic quasi-table.

damosan · May 19, 2004, 10:01 PM

Originally posted by deharlow:
Nope, check out Servoy or FileMaker, Access is too closely tied to the Windows OS.

Daniel

That's crap. If Excel can be ported in some fashion so can Access.

Damo

typoon · May 19, 2004, 10:19 PM

Originally posted by damosan:
That's crap. If Excel can be ported in some fashion so can Access.

Damo

That's not the point. Filemaker is King on the Mac and Access would have no chance. I had a MacBU guy basically admit that Filemaker was far superior to Access. With that he also said that it would never come to the Mac.

selowitch · May 19, 2004, 10:22 PM

Originally posted by typoon:
I had a MacBU guy basically admit that Filemaker was far superior to Access. With that he also said that it would never come to the Mac.

Keep in mind that until 1998, there actually was a version MS Access for the Mac, and it was pretty good, though not as good as Filemaker, IMO.

tooki · May 19, 2004, 10:47 PM

What are you talking about? There most certainly wasn't.

I think you're thinking of MS Fox Pro, their other database.

tooki

TimmyDee51 · May 20, 2004, 12:48 AM

Man, I remember Fox Pro. My dad used to use that on our Performa 575 for the district science center inventory. I haven't thought about that in years.

Back on topic, have you looked into some of the Cocoa front ends to MySQL. I haven't used them personally, but I've heard of a few people who have. That could just be for administration, though, but combine that with PHP and you'd have a decent web app type thing.

deharlow · May 20, 2004, 02:10 AM

Originally posted by selowitch:
Keep in mind that until 1998, there actually was a version MS Access for the Mac, and it was pretty good, though not as good as Filemaker, IMO.

There was Fox Pro but never Access. As for the Excel can be ported so can Access comment, that is incorrect, Excel was a Mac first program, it was ported to Windows.

Daniel

rytc · May 20, 2004, 03:50 AM

Originally posted by deharlow:
There was Fox Pro but never Access. As for the Excel can be ported so can Access comment, that is incorrect, Excel was a Mac first program, it was ported to Windows.

Daniel

However from word 6 on they just started porting the whole Windows codebase back over to the mac to keep compatibility between the two Oses. The Excel we have now is a totally different beast to the original one.
I also remember reading somewhere that Apple i.e. Steve Jobs, had basically told MS not to port Access over as Filemaker was perfectly adequate (or something to that effect)

R

Maflynn · May 20, 2004, 07:37 AM

Originally posted by mbryda:
Actually, Access is quite crappy on the PC. It doesn't like large DB's well at all.

fwiw, I think access is an excellent database program. Yes things slow down in large databases (200MB+) and the multiuser capability is limited. Of course its not intended for large databases or multiuser environments they want you to use SQL Server. They even of upsizing wizards to migrate access dbs to sql. I've used access quite a lot and found it flexible, fast and stable. I particularly like the query tool, as I prefer writing my queries in sql and not using a wizard. too bad MS doesn't use the same T-SQL in access that it has in its bigger brother.

Mike

selowitch · May 20, 2004, 01:31 PM

Originally posted by deharlow:
There was Fox Pro but never Access. As for the Excel can be ported so can Access comment, that is incorrect, Excel was a Mac first program, it was ported to Windows.

Daniel

Yes, pardon me. I stand corrected. It was Fox Pro.

itai195 · May 20, 2004, 02:07 PM

What's wrong with MySQL? At least it's free. With PHP and Apache already in Mac OS you can have a nice MAMP solution (as opposed to LAMP

)

selowitch · May 20, 2004, 02:41 PM

Originally posted by itai195:
What's wrong with MySQL? At least it's free. With PHP and Apache already in Mac OS you can have a nice MAMP solution (as opposed to LAMP )

I assume there no way of doing a database with Apache/PHP alone; there has to be database like MySQL for PHP to draw data from, right?

itai195 · May 20, 2004, 03:01 PM

Originally posted by selowitch:
I assume there no way of doing a database with Apache/PHP alone; there has to be database like MySQL for PHP to draw data from, right?

I think that's a self-answering question. You have to have a database to write a database application. Apache/PHP are the presentation tier. MySQL is a free and relatively easy to use database. There are plenty of reasons not to use it, but it's often worth consideration.

That said, you can also use files for data storage, but it's not recommended.

Chris O'Brien · May 20, 2004, 03:03 PM

Well, PHP now comes with SQLite prebundled - so you can do SQL stuff with just PHP. It may be a bit limited though - I use PHP with MySQL because it's what I'm used to. I've not tried the SQLite stuff, so I'm afraid I'm not well enough informed to comment.

xi_hyperon · May 20, 2004, 03:08 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
What are you talking about? There most certainly wasn't.

I think you're thinking of MS Fox Pro, their other database.

tooki

Correct. And boy, did Fox Pro suck. Years ago, some genius got the idea to use it for our price list at work (we carried about 7,000 products at the time). Youch.

deharlow · May 20, 2004, 07:20 PM

Originally posted by rytc:
However from word 6 on they just started porting the whole Windows codebase back over to the mac to keep compatibility between the two Oses. The Excel we have now is a totally different beast to the original one.
I also remember reading somewhere that Apple i.e. Steve Jobs, had basically told MS not to port Access over as Filemaker was perfectly adequate (or something to that effect)

R

And after MS realized what a piece of junk Word 6 was they split the code base and are not doing just a port of Word/Excel etc. that was one of the reasons for the Mac BU.

Daniel

itai195 · May 20, 2004, 07:32 PM

Originally posted by Black Book:
Well, PHP now comes with SQLite prebundled - so you can do SQL stuff with just PHP. It may be a bit limited though - I use PHP with MySQL because it's what I'm used to. I've not tried the SQLite stuff, so I'm afraid I'm not well enough informed to comment.

Good to know. I haven't used PHP in a few years, I'm a Java man myself