David


>The way I see it, DBISAM is more closely associated with the likes of
>"desktop" databases like Paradox and Access (it was originally a BDE
>replacement, right?), and EDB is aiming more towards the "small SQL
>Server" crowd.

Tim's the only one who can really answer this, but my memory says that it was originally going to be DBISAM V5, and it must have been intended as a replacement because he was originally going to terminate DBISAM.

>But to address your ease of reading statement, I should point out that
>we simply used colors to indicate whether a question had been answered
>or not. I think yellow background was unanswered, and the regular
>clBtnFace was answered, so it was very obvious where the person
>was--and they didn't have to go to the extra work of checking of a box
>after answering a question--the program just knew.

Neat idea for form filling. What did you do for printout or was it all just analysis?

>Having to click a checkbox for each question would've been
>much more tedious than it already was.

Errm - why would they have had to click it - the program could have done that.

>And it was also actually simpler to code than to have even more fields
>to deal with. We did think of using the checkbox idea, but shuddered
>at the thought and were very glad we could simply check .IsNull.

Lazy, and you complain about me complaining about more work

Roy Lambert

>>But to address your ease of reading statement, I should point out that
>>we simply used colors to indicate whether a question had been answered
>>or not. I think yellow background was unanswered, and the regular
>>clBtnFace was answered, so it was very obvious where the person
>>was--and they didn't have to go to the extra work of checking of a box
>>after answering a question--the program just knew.
>
> Neat idea for form filling. What did you do for printout or was it all
> just analysis?

It was all done on the computer--we had no need to print out the forms.  The
subjects (survey takers) used self-contained touch screen tablet computers
and filled them out themselves.

>>Having to click a checkbox for each question would've been
>>much more tedious than it already was.
>
> Errm - why would they have had to click it - the program could have done
> that.

True--in that case, the coding would've been MUCH more tedious rather than
just somewhat more tedious.  


--
David Cornelius
CorneliusConcepts.com

Roy,

<< What I was asking for, and didn't get was a categorical answer if it
would be done, and some idea of timescales ("*way* down the list" is
probably a bit long to wait). >>

I didn't give you a categorical answer whether/when it would be done because
*I didn't know and still don't know*.  I have to do what is best *now* for
the business and cannot be making individual promises about features.  As
things come up, bits like what you're requesting will get pushed back
further and further because they're a minefield to deal with.  I simply
don't know until I get in there and start making the changes, and I'm not
prepared to start hacking things apart at this point in time.  I'm trying to
get 2.0 settled down and stable, not make it worse.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Roy,

<< Tim's the only one who can really answer this, but my memory says that it
was originally going to be DBISAM V5, and it must have been intended as a
replacement because he was originally going to terminate DBISAM. >>

Yes, EDB was originally going to be DBISAM 5.  However, as soon as I
scrapped the DBISAM source code and started from scratch it became
ElevateDB.  Trust me, people would have screamed bloody murder if I would
have called it DBISAM 5.  I was trying to be honest with everyone about what
it is.

Also, I wasn't going to terminate DBISAM, rather I was simply going to let
it "run its course" without any more updates.  That changed with the support
plans.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim,

My personal vote this Null issue.  The way it is right now is correct.

David


>It was all done on the computer--we had no need to print out the forms. The
>subjects (survey takers) used self-contained touch screen tablet computers
>and filled them out themselves.

OK that makes sense.

I did think of a really horrible question whilst walking the dog.

Say someone typed an answer, realised they'd answered the wrong question and deleted it, answered the right question and then decided they didn't want to answer the other question after all.......

Roy Lambert

Tim


>Also, I wasn't going to terminate DBISAM, rather I was simply going to let
>it "run its course" without any more updates. That changed with the support
>plans.

Fair enough, difference in terminology. At one point I wrote "terminate with extreme prejudice" but knew that wasn't right, and would get a laugh either.

Roy Lambert

Roy

> Anyway I've decided I'm going to take the hit of about an extra weeks work
to sort my app out without this feature.

Unless you use .clear extensively in your application surely all thats need
to be done is to make all char/varchar fields not nullable with a default
expression of  ''.

How about showing of you edb SQL skills with a generic procedure for all the
null<>emptystring haters <vbg>

John

> How about showing of you edb SQL skills with a generic procedure for all
> the
> null<>emptystring haters <vbg>

Wrote the same thing myself earlier in thread, without the <vbg> but why
not just a few triggers?

Just a few lines of code could easily replace any null string field with a
'' as it's posted.

Hi Jerry

> Wrote the same thing myself earlier in thread, without the <vbg> but
why
> not just a few triggers?

> Just a few lines of code could easily replace any null string field with a
> '' as it's posted.

Ahh.  I thought the NONULL idea was for retrieval sort of like coalesce.

You could use triggers for new data.

I was just suggesting a generic routine using the information tables could
be written to fix up existing tables, setting nulls to empty strings,
default value to null and the nullable flag to true.

John