For example, joining manually 4 tables with sums and 'group by' is not fun at all, compared to executing a simple sql query . It would have been a huge pain to generate the reports in my applications without a SQL engine !
Absolutely! LOL I'm working on a LAMP app right now that would never run on something without significant SQL support - at least not in any sort of development schedule I'd be willing to live with.
> As a producer of commercial software for non-technical end-users, I'd never > consider producing a MySQL, Firebird or MsSQL application. Aren't most of the applications made for non-techincal users (except from compilers, IDEs and other development tools) ? :-)
There's non-technical with IT support, and then there's truck drivers. ;-)
> The end-user level of expertise is too high for my market. With TDbf I only have > to let the user pick a directory to store the data in, and provide an easy way to > do backups. What extra actions should the end-users perform if the application uses sqllite or embedded-firebird ? If would be even cleaner because the database is a single file instead of a directory full of dbf and ndx files.
I must state I've never used sqllite or embedded firebird. My issue with firebird is the additional libraries you must install - which isn't a big deal in Windows, but due to dependency hell I stay away from anything requiring extra's. Does sqllite require extra libraries? One of my key enjoyments of TDbf is that there's nothing else, it's all implemented within the Pascal code. I never have to think about if libraries registered properly or something in the OS overwrote my version with a newer or older version. This also reduces end-user tech support issues in my experience. But again, keep in mind I'm talking about a single-user application compiled for both Windows and Linux.
The other DB devel I do is almost all what I would call an "application appliance" - a LAMP rack mounted unit with entirely a web based interface. On that note I'd LOVE to see a series of Lazarus frameworks for implementing an Ajax application... That stuff is hard to code!
-Tony
