Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!ames!lll-winken!xanth!aiko
From: aiko@cs.odu.edu (John K Hayes)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: dBASE IV - is this for real?
Keywords: slow, annoying, egregiously bad
Message-ID: <9383@xanth.cs.odu.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 89 14:06:21 GMT
Reply-To: aiko@cs.odu.edu (John K Hayes)
Followup-To: comp.databases
Organization: Old Dominion University; Norfolk, Virginia USA
Lines: 42



This is to anyone at Ashton-Tate who may be listening.  I cannot believe they
went ahead and put out something so bad as dBASE IV.  I am embarrassed for
initiating it's purchase at my workplace.  It takes about 20 seconds just
to load up enough to start listening - and most of this time is spent painting
some ridiculous moving logo graphic and an extremely long and annoying
license agreement (and this is on a 12 MHz machine).

Everything it does seems to take about twice as long as dBASE III.  It's all
very pretty - the BROWSE screens are a whole lot more pleasing to the eye as
long as you don't mind waiting a year to shift columns around or just to sift
through the data.  Ashton-tate seems to have sacrificed efficiency and speed
for pretty screens with nice colors.

They've also added a "feature" which forces any programs you try to run with
dBASE IV to be "compiled" into dBASE IV object files before they are run.  Then
when they run they are just as slow as when they were interpreted line-by-line.
This is because they do not get linked (although there is some sort of LINK
command which really does not link - I guess all it does is allow you to 
distribute slow programs that cannot be edited - big help there; what to they
think I use Clipper for?  and Clipper is fast).  So, with this "upgrade" you
now have to wait for a program to compile before it is run and then it runs
just as slowly as if it were not compiled.  AND...if you make any changes to
the programs - you have to delete the old object file before running it or it
just runs the old object file.  

I hope Ashton-Tate gives out free upgrades to dBASE IV to those of us who
were stupid enough to pay piles of money for a near worthless copy of v 1.0
(one of our operators has deleted her copy and replaced it with her old
dBASE III).

-- 
    ---{john hayes}  Old Dominion University; Norfolk, Virginia USA
                     internet: aiko@cs.odu.edu
                     Home: (804) 622-8348     Work: (804) 460-2241 ext 134  

                      <++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++>
Are you a Have or a Have_Not?  Because if you're a Have_Not, you've probably
had it; whereas, if you're a Have, you've probably got it and are going to 
give it away at some point in the future!       --- The Clash
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