Hi Cassandra,

> >or a local desktop database application made with
> >Access that meets the need you perceive to pass data around via the

Windows

> >clipboard.
> Now when I began this whole endeavour, I considered using MSAccess,

however

> was discouraged from it due to Access not being of the quality of other
> RDBMS (such as Firebird, or Interbase). So I took to the task of learning
> about Firebird, which I was more then happy to do, as the skills picked up
> creating this application (albeit small) would no doubt be helpful.
> In any case, isn't MSAccess an RDBMS also? So why is it better to user
> Access, then to use a product such as Firebird.
> Is it because Firebird is more aimed at being a client/server product.
> Whereas to emulate a client server with Access, you have to create a
> database, then create a second 'database' which actually links to all the
> tables in the first database. In this way you can distribute the second
> database, so that the data is shared (because all data is in the first
> database, and any number of copies of the second database may exist

because

> all that they do is point to the first).

In the future (perhaps Firebird 1.5) there will be also something called
Embedded Firebird. Instead of connecting to the server using a certain
database, you will be linking your application with a (set of) libraries
that access the database file for you. Of course, this is a one-user only
solution, as you can have no two application getting exlusive access on
a single file. This would be a very nice solution for your "remote"
employees.

As for Access being a RDBMS - NO!! Please no no no! (btw, the "R" part
of the current commercial implementations of RDBMSses is questionable).
Access is aimed at single-user access to a single file, with forms, queries
and
all other crap stored into a database file - you can write applications in
it, unlike
Firebird, which is "just" a database server application. Anything that looks
like
multi-user has been added to Access in a later stage, to overcome the gap
between single-user systems and multi-user Client/Server systems. In short:
patchwork.

Any (real) (R)DBMS is build from the ground up for multi-user access,
a single process writing/using one or more data-files, is ACID-compliant
(
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=acid+com
pliant -
read a couple of those links ), supports different constraint types that
allow you to put logic in your database to tell the engine what the data
actually is (not on a human level) so that it can protect your data from
outside dangers (like people modifying your data directly, for example).
Security is also a part of this...



With regards,

Martijn Tonies
InterBase Workbench - the developer tool for InterBase & Firebird
Firebird Workbench - the developer tool for Firebird
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com

"This is an object-oriented system.
If we change anything, the users object."