Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!jarthur!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!hacgate!ashtate!dbase!awd
From: awd@dbase.A-T.COM (Alastair Dallas)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Is dBASE IV SQL really slow?
Summary: dBASE IV is fast
Message-ID: <419@dbase.A-T.COM>
Date: 9 Feb 90 00:11:20 GMT
References: <16946.25cffdfa@ccavax.camb.com>
Organization: Ashton Tate Development Center Glendale, Calif.
Lines: 21

In article <16946.25cffdfa@ccavax.camb.com>, glassmann@ccavax.camb.com writes:
> I'm new at this, so this may have been discussed already, but...
> Is dBASE IV SQL incredibly slow?  I created a small table and did a 
> SELECT WHERE, and it took about 8 seconds, with lots of disk accesses.
> The equivalent query in normal dBASE took under a second.
> -- 
> Lenny Glassmann                lenny@ccavax.camb.com
>                                ...uunet!ccavax!lenny

I don't recall this being discussed.  Terms like 'slow' and 'fast' are
relative, you see.  If a painter wants to show a bright light, he paints
with black.  Most PC SQL implementations that I've seen (which is not all
that many) do things in a mainframe mode and write lots of temp files which
makes them slower than a native program like dBASE.  This entire mail
is a little tongue-in-cheek, but I have heard others say that dBASE/SQL
is particularly useful as an introduction to SQL for dBASE users and that
in this context, speed is not much of an issue.  I certainly haven't
heard that from any official Ashton-Tate sources, however, and neither
have you.

/alastair/