Earth,
>> What is a VAR?
A Value Added Reseller, someone who builds a complete software package and sells you all requisite licenses to support it. Not quite a consultant and not quite a commercial retailer. Somewhere between.
To answer some of the other questions raised in the thread:
>> (a) Are there any tools available to aid in converting an Access97 db to Paradox?
Not that I'm aware of, however, the current version of BDE (v5.1.1) can open Access97 tables natively, e.g. as if they were Paradox or dBASE tables. This means you can now use Paradox for Windows as a front-end for Access97 and below. (To my knowledge, Access2000 is not yet supported; refer to
for details.
BDE is (sigh) Borland's version of ODBC/Jet/ADO, though BDE (aka IDAPI aka ODAPI) shipped first. ODBC was shipped as a response.
Remember, Paradox for Windows is a front-end to the Paradox file-format. It's a little weird, because Corel owns the front-end and Borland owns the file format.
>> (b) Does Paradox offer any major advantages over Access (aside from
>> the obvious it's not a Microsoft product and is therefore.... cheaper)?
There are trade-offs to either. I tend to prefer Paradox over Access because a) I'm biased and b) Paradox tends to handle larger file-server based applications well. For example, most Access applications have trouble moving beyond ~20 (generous) simultaneous users, however Paradox is documented as supporting up to 300 and I've seen it handle 650.
Much depends on the quality of the application. If you're looking at ~500 simultaneous users, then a local database format is not the right tool; you need InterBase, Oracle, Sybase, or MS SQL Server.
Also, I understand that the Paradox community tends to be more responsive than the Access community. Check out Corel's newsgroups and see what sorts of responses that various people get. As I understand it, the Access newsgroups get many questions, but far fewer answers.
>> Does this mean that, in a given company, one copy of Developer's Edition could be
>> purchased, a db created, and then this db could be distributed/installed to all other
>> PC's in the company without having to buy other Paradox licenses?
In a word, yes, though in practice, you may want to buy administrative licenses for targeted users. There are times when bad things happen and you want other people to help. However, according to the license, yes, one Dev. Ed can be used to depoy apps to as many people are you desire.
Picking up some other thoughts raised in the thread:
>> Do you want to do high power SQL queries? Access does these better.
That's debateable. Borland has not done a good job of documenting the improvements to BDE SQL support over the years. For example, if you're familiar with Paradox 5.0, then you may be pleasantly surprised to learn that you can now do sub-selects.
On the other hand, there is often a great advantage to chaining multiple queries together. I think this is really a wash between the two until one or the other fully supports triggers, stored procedures and other remote server concepts in a local, file-server format.
>> Do you like QBE? I think Paradox does this better (personal opinion).
QBE was a Paradox hallmark, one that borrowed heavily from earlier work on IBM's DB2. Unfortunately, it has receive no attention (nor updates) in the last several revisions. Also, QBE queries get translated to SQL queries internally.
Mind you, I personally love QBE. However, LocalSQL can perform some tricks that QBE cannot, such as selecting by months or years.
>> In general, which would be the most user friendly for the end user?
As the developer, you are solely responsible for the end-user's experience. Your users could care less about file format issues. While a little dated now, you might consider locating a copy of Alan Cooper's "About Face," which discusses many ideas regarding the usability of software. Even if it is dated, the ideas he raises are worth pondering.
>> So swapping to Paradox (which by the moment is appearing to be the more and
>> more financially viable option) will be most painful to... me - because I have never
>> even seen Paradox.
Okay; you're going to have some growing pains because Parodox *is* different. There are things that will strike you as silly, perhaps because they are. However, I like to think of Paradox as the capable, less-flashy worker that does the job right, versus the flash-in-that-pan that wimps out when really tested.
In the sprit of full disclosure, I'm as rabid a fan as you'll find. I strongly prefer Paradox over Access; however, I fully realize that it's what works for me. Your mileage may vary.
I am biased, though, I worked on the Paradox Development Team (at Borland) for five years.
-- Lance