Associated fields and @AF

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Tue, Jun 28, 2005 at 12:49:37PM -0700, Christopher Yerry wrote:
>    I find it difficult to believe their are "file Pro" only shops around.
>    I  have  converted many to .net but there are others that I don't want
>    to  mess  with  (their  is too much code / not worth the change). If I
>    take every table and make it relational (that's real relational not fp
>    related  fields  relational)  I  can  then  use that data in any other
>    environment.  The  related field mentality does not work anywhere else
>    and  if  we  want  filePro to still exist it has to be able to be used
>    accross the board - that's a relational table solution!

Anyone who spends time on this list knows I'm not fpTech's number 1
cheerleader these days.

But I'll take issue with your characterization here, Chris.

"Relational" means a lot of things.  But it's not completely
unreasonable, as I believe you think, to apply it to what filePro
permits you to do.  Yes, you have to use procedural code to walk
through joins, instead of the engine and the language doing it for you,
and yes, that's as often a bug as it it a feature.  But the fact that
the engine and the language do *not* simulate joins for you isn't
enough to completely discount filePro.

Most SQL toolsets don't handle header-detail UI creation well, either,
until you get up over $5k (for the commercial ones, at least; I don't
know what state Rekall is in these days).  (And no, I don't consider
Access a toolset.  :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
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