At 17:19 25.01.2001 -0500, Charlie wrote:

>2) Should I be using Firebird or Interbase 6? Looks like from the mail lists
>that folks are working hard on Firebird. Who knows what 'B' is doing

Borland has made some strange decisions regarding Interbase the last couple
of years. IB6 may end up a nice product, but most of us have greater
confidence in the Firebird folks which are open and responsive.

>3) Which of the following do I need:
> IBExpert,
> Marathon,
> InterBase Workbench,
> QuickDesk,
> IB-WISQL,
> IB Console,
> ?????????, or
> none

IB-WISQL is free and worth getting anyway. IB Workbench is still in beta,
but except for the bugs I really liked it when I tried. Simple to use and
intuitive shortkeys. The rest on your list I've never tried.

>4) IBOjects seems to be the only set of components for Interbase; or is that
>they are the best set of components? Since I'm used to Delphi and Paradox
>which has many components available; I'm not sure what to do? Please help.

As you've seen from the other replies, IBO is far from the only set of
components. Although I haven't tried its competitors at all (well, I've
used the BDE with Paradox tables), I'm convinced that it is the best set of
components. Sean said your choice might become a short-term solution, but
that's not true with IBO - Jason will support Kylix. "An entirely new
object model for the support of databases" may well affect the
dataset-compatible strain of components (TIBO*), but shouldn't matter for
the native components (TIB_*).

>5) How in the world do you modify the "structure" of a table of an Interbase
>gdb? With the Database Desktop I could modify a paradox table, e.g. change
>the field name or the type of field. How is that done with interbase? Can
>that be done with any of the tools listed in 3) above? I've tried to edit a
>field with several of them but to no avail.

You can use the DDL part of SQL in IB-WISQL, or use IB Workbench. But it
isn't as simple as with Paradox, and some people recommend to make a new
table and copy over the records rather than changing an existing table
definition.

>6) For a couple of weeks I have been subscribed to several mail lists
>(IB-Support, IBObjects, IB-Delphi, IBDI, Interbaseworkbench, IB-Priorities,
>IB-Support and a bunch of Delphi lists - for many months) and have been
>trying to get a grasp of what's going on. Regardless of the Borland/et ali
>problem and the QuickDesk and IB Expert problem; I simply want to go through
>the learning curve as painlessly and quickly as I can. I'm not into
>re-invention, many of you have already discovered what really works and what
>really helps getting a product to the client. Please let me know and please
>turn me on to the best help channels.

I think you've found them already...

>7) I've gotten Getting Started with IBObjects and I'm working myself through
>it.

Well done.

>8) What's going to happen when Jason Wharton decides that he wants to kick
>back and just enjoy the wife and children?

Well, he does that every Sunday and has the occational holiday. Jason
really isn't a quitter so he'll stick unless something happens to him. If
it should happen to be an elephant rather than a deer next time, I'm sure
Geoff, Claudio and a few others would keep IBO alive. But losing Jason
would be a big blow to IBO, no-one can fully replace him.

>9) What's in it for the Ann's/husband, the Helen's, the Jason's and you
>other folks who are working on Firebird, etc?

No idea.

HTH,
Set