MS Access Alternatives (was: (resent) Ballmer vows to kill Linux giant Google)

[Walter Dnes]

On Sat, Sep 17, 2005 at 01:18:05PM -0400, CLIFFORD ILKAY wrote

> None of the above come with an embedded database. You have to "set
> up and admin" MySQL or PostgreSQL

  I've always been a "command-line-commando" since the early days of DOS.
The linux command line and shell-scripting was one of the attractions
that pulled me towards linux in the first place.  If I'm going to set up
PostrgeSQL, I'm going to run it from the command line.  At work I'm not
officially a CS, but a part of my duties involve custom data queries for
clients.  We have an Oracle server, and for the easy queries, MS Access
front-ending Oracle via ODBC is the way to go.

  However, for even slightly complex stuff, nothing beats PL/SQL and SQL
queries at the command line.  Our database is umpteenth-degree normalized,
which means I often have to mimic cross-tabbing.  Let's just say that
multiple self-joins of a multi-hundred gigabyte table "is not a good
thing".  There is a way to cross-tab normalized data programmatically,
and get a quick response from the query.  It does *NOT* involve
self-joins.  I really like doing SQL and especially PL/SQL.  Since I'm
not part of the DBA team, I have read-only access on the tables.

> Most distros have packages for both and for those source based
> distros like Slackware,

========== Gentoo ==========
[m3000][root][~] emerge --ask postgresql

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!
[ebuild  N    ] dev-db/libpq-8.0.3
[ebuild  N    ] dev-db/postgresql-8.0.3

Do you want me to merge these packages? [Yes/No]

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org>
My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca
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