Hi all
Historically xBase language products made data base access easy in that
1 it was restricted to a single data base file structure (dbf), and
- access to that data base was built into the language
And, of course, it was all character based.
The language was beautifully structured and supported both self extension and extension through C language interface. This is how we now have support for graphical interface - FiveWin, FiveLinux etc (and others). They map to different windows managers - FiveWin to native Windows calls, FiveLinux to GTK+ but there are other options including QT. Or indeed character based drivers of various sorts.
Well similarly there is a wide range of possibilities in the data base area. From continuing to use dbf files through a myriad of alternative data bases both stand alone and client server as well as applications that don't use a data base at all or have needs that are met by xml files rather than a data base. I don't think you can generalise that most / nearly all FiveWin users will want to opt for a single data base solution integrated into FiveWin. As Antonio said you are more likely to reach a critical mass if you try to band together all Harbour / xHarbour users that wish to go for a particular data base solution than trying to keep within the FiveWin community. And how you access your data base and how you display things to the user should be largely independant of each other.
In my experience dbfs are fine for stand alone use and for fast local area networks. Beyond that you need to use a client server solution. That can still be dbf based (as in my case) but for most people that probably means a non Harbour based data base manager accessed through a query language (probably SQL). Regardless some of the data base navigation logic that was traditionally handled on the client has to be handled on the server (minimising network traffic) and so in most cases will require a shift in your programming paradigm.
If you need a client server solution then any solution that merely translates typical xBase code to SQL queries is unlikely to solve any performance issue, your code needs to change and you need to embrace a new paradigm. It is, however, possible to split the xBase code so that data navigation / selection is performed on the server side.
Regards
xProgrammer