Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!apple!netcom!ergo
From: ergo@netcom.UUCP (Isaac Rabinovitch)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Is there a spreadsheet/database combo program?
Keywords: spread sheet, database, linked, lotus, dbase
Message-ID: <15552@netcom.UUCP>
Date: 25 Oct 90 21:57:20 GMT
Organization: UESPA
Lines: 37

In <1990Oct19.163313.15580@terminator.cc.umich.edu> jkenyon@us.cc.umich.edu (Jim Kenyon) writes:

>>I'd like to find a way to import or link database entries with entries
>>in a spreadsheet (Lotus/Excel/whatever doesn't matter).  What I'm looking
>>for a way of searching for a item in a database (w/ some predicate), then
>>once the entry or entries have been found, bring it's values into the
>>spreadsheet.


>Try Lotus Symphony -- I thought it was a spreadsheet cum database.
>Also, Ashton Tate Framework might be of interest....

The Framework "database" is really just a special kind of spreadsheet.
It's easier to define some kinds of calculations, and there's a
dBase-style entry mode, but otherwise it does nothing your usual
spreadsheet won't do.  In particular, your "database" has to all fit
into memory at once.

Lotus Symphony is probably similar.  I think all the "integrated
applications" that were so big a few years ago are pretty worthless.
Without some kind of multitasking support (pretty good in Borland's
Sidekick Plus; poor or nonexistant in all the others) and support for
third-party add-ins (promised by Borland, but never delivered; simply
not possible in all the others), you're stuck with a big, slow program
that does everything poorly.

Right Hand Man might be an exception.  I played with an early
shareware version and was impressed, despite some gross bugs.  Current
version is too expensive to catch on.

Perhaps one could kludge together some kind of connection under
windows or desqview, using macros.  

-- 

ergo@netcom.uucp			Isaac Rabinovitch
{apple,amdahl,claris}!netcom!ergo	Silicon Valley, CA