Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!a1040
From: a1040@mindlink.UUCP (Robert Broughton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: dBMAN V Review (long)
Message-ID: <4036@mindlink.UUCP>
Date: 4 Dec 90 04:36:43 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Lines: 80

> rodent@netcom.UUCP writes:
> 
> 
> >>dBMAN V addressed this file compatibility issue by providing a
> >>configuration option, DBASE3, and a SET option, DB3. Enabling
> >>this option is supposed to make dBMAN work with dBASE III-
> >>compatible files. Unfortunately, this doesn't quite work. Logical
> >>fields are expected to contain values of "Y" or "N" instead of
> >>"T" or "F". If a field contains anything other than "Y", its
> >>value is considered to be .F.
> 
> 
> >This is just plain wrong!  Amiga dBMan supports "Y", "N", "T" AND "F",
> >with or without the dBase dots ". .".  Perhaps you have an ancient version
> >Robert?


I received version 5.0 in January or February of 1990. I telephoned
Versasoft in June, and asked if an update was forthcoming. The answer
was no.


>>This was the first of several serious bugs that I found in dBMAN
>>V. Here is a list:


>If you find bugs in our product, please let us know about them and
>give us a chance to fix them our explain them before blasting us in
>public! Thank you.  Many of the things you mention have already been
>fixed, as I detail now:

Every bug reported here was reported to Versasoft, via FAX. This was
before you started to work there, however. They even told me at one
point that they were planning to put an Amiga programmer on the
payroll.

I was particularly annoyed by your tech support dept.'s response to
the "Y/N" vs. "T/F" bug discussed above. The person who handled it
made no effort to understand the problem. I wasn't talking about
how logical fields were displayed on the screen, but how they were
recorded in dBASE-compatible files.


>> There is a capability for handling arrays, although the
>>designers chose to use []'s for subscripts instead of ()'s.
>>(Clipper uses []'s also.)

>This is standard.  Why would we use ()'s?  To be like BASIC?

No, to be like FoxPlus, FoxPro, and dBASE IV. This is a minor point
anyway, as it is little trouble to change brackets to parentheses.

>>The really unfortunate thing about this product is that the
>>really serious shortcomings in it could be fixed in a matter of a
>>few person-weeks. Versasoft cannot use poverty as an excuse for
>>not doing this.


>Well, I spent those weeks and look at the thanks I get :-)  Really,
>check out V 5.3.

Ask for a raise. And send an upgrade notice to Syntec A/S,
Hamang terasse 63, N-1300 Sandvika, Norway.


>>A configuration option which would make it possible to work with
>>the type of index files used by Lattice's dBC III product would
>>be a great help.


>Our index file structure is superior.  Changing index file type would
>mean a complete re-write and a step backwards.

My suggestion is to do the same thing with index files that you did
with .dbf files; Give users the choice of using dBMAN format, or
dBASE-compatible format.
--
Robert Broughton    a1040@mindlink.uucp
                    a1040%mindlink@wimsey.bc.ca
                    a1040%mindlink@van-bc.uucp