Board index » off-topic » Tutorial, please

2005-01-02 11:41:41 PM
off-topic16
I would like to know if anyone has a "beginner to advanced" tutorial for
budding database programmers.
I would really like to get into database programming and away from storing
my records in straight text files. I have done some work in the past (2-3
years ago) with the Apollo Database stuff but I still have an uncomplete
understanding of many database concepts. For example,
What is a database engine? I assume it is a separate program that accesses
the actual files in the database and is intermediary between my program and
the data itself. If so, how do I know which database engine is active. I
don't remember telling my program to access the Apollo tables through the
BDE. And lately I've been hearing about "BDE replacement."
What's the best way to design my tables? I think I know all the fields I
want in my tables but how difficult is is going to be to add fields later?
How many tables should I have?
What do ADO, ODBC, and all the other acronyms mean? How do they releate to
each other?
I realize the answers to these and all the other questions I have may fill a
book or twenty but if I could find a tutorial to get me started at the
beginning I would be very thankful.
--Doug
 

I have never seen a tutorial that covers the material you are interested
in. There are, of course, numerous books on database programming and
design.
Database Engine, also called Database Management System (DBMS): the code
that actually reads and writes the database files. The DBMS can be
compiled into your application, provided as DLLs that are used by your
application or consist of a separate program that runs on your computer or
another computer on the network.
File Server Database: A database where each client PC directly reads and
writes database files on a shared file server for multi-user access. The
database is on your local hard drive for single user access. A poor choice
for multi-user applications since a workstation crash can corrupt the
database.
Client/Server Database: Database server software runs on one machine on a
network and handles all access to the database files. All client computers
send commands to the database server (usually SQL statements). The
database server executes the commands and returns any results to the
client. Much more robust and faster in multi-user environments.
BDE = Borland Database Engine: The BDE has not been developed or
manintained for several years. Parts of it have been deprecated. Do not
use it for anything.
ODBC = Open Database Connectivity: A database driver standard developed by
Microsoft. ODBC is still widely used although Microsoft has attempted to
replace it with ADO.
ADO = Active Data Objects: A newer COM based data access standard from
Microsoft. The successor to ODBC.
ADO.NET: The newest data access standard from Microsoft. ADO.NET is part
of the .NET framework. The only similarity between ADO and ADO.NET is that
both contain the letters "ADO" in their name.
Designing relational databases is too big a topic for a newsgroup article.
You need to read a book to understand how to determine what tables you
need, how the tables will be related, how to choose a primary key,
referential integrity and other things.
--
Bill Todd (TeamB)
TeamB cannot answer questions received via email
 

On 2 Jan 2005 09:23:15 -0800, "Bill Todd" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote:
I need to use dBase 5 tables for a number of reasons. What is the
alternative to the BDE to access these tables?
 

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