Paradox vs. Access

[Szechuan]

Hi, I'm doing some company research; the higher-ups want to look into switching from Paradox to Access. Could I get some pros and cons of each?

101 little bugs in the code,
101 little bugs,
Take one out and recompile,
102 little bugs in the code.

 

[beanbrain]

It might be easier if you include some information such as the number of users who will use the application simulateously, what the general purpose of the application is, etc.

 

[Langley]

Like Bean pointed out, the number of networked users would be the primary concern. If you get more than a few people using Access tables simultaneously there will be trouble.

Rough estimate:

< 10 users - Access or Paradox
> 10 Users < 250 Users - Paradox or Oracle
> 250 Users - Oracle

You can get away with more Paradox users than 250, but at that rate your data will probably be approaching the table size limits fairly quickly.

Mac

&quot;There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't&quot;

langley_mckelvy@cd4.co.harris.tx.us

 

[Szechuan]

Generally small, single-user.
We've been having indexing errors and data loss when using Paradox in conjunction with the Borland Database Engine and Builder 5 and are looking into whether or not Access is any more stable.

101 little bugs in the code,
101 little bugs,
Take one out and recompile,
102 little bugs in the code.

 

[footpad]

Szechuan,

Can you elaborate on the index problems you've been having with CPPB and the BDE? Odds are, those are being caused by environmental conditions that can be detected and dealt with.

Paradox for Windows itself is a BDE client, just like your custom CPPB application. Thus, if you're having index problems with one, you're likely to run into similar problems with the other.

FWIW, there are strategies for dealing with corruption problems. A couple of good resources include:

--

http://www.thedelphimagazine.com/samples/Paradox/paradox.htm

--

http://bdesupport.com/errors.htm

The first is an extensive article by Brian Long that discusses corruption and offers some ways to deal with it. While written for Delphi, the underlying concepts should be easily ported to CPPB.

Hope this helps...

-- Lance