> On 22-Jun-2004 08:57:28, Helen Borrie wrote:
> You were right to be at least stirred by Dmitry's comments. The original
> reference was to a downloadable shareware that was to be distributed
> "blind" to "idiot users" - not to something like Tim's application which
> goes out to known users and has support at the end of a phone line.
>
> My point - which was bent around by a few knights on white horses - is

that

> "idiot users" don't know about things like backups; they also tend to
> blast any old thing onto their computers and break things; they download
> free SQL tools and stuff up databases...you get accountants who write cute

> little Access front-ends that can break things *really* bad...

I hear where you are coming from. We have an application we have sold for
about 5 years that was written in a language called 4th Dimension. Its an
old Macintosh 4GL from way back that was ported to Windows in the mid 90s.
It has a relational database built in, and a GUI. Works fine, although its
no SQL database.

We see customers routinely forget to backup. Or forget where they put the
backups. We see their computers getting hammered with this month's MS worm,
or virus du jour, and general overall lack of TLC on the computers. We get
asked to clean it up routinely.

Why? Because the customers don't understand where their responsibility
stops and ours starts. We are only responsible for our application, yet we
get called in to take care of all of this stuff from time to time. We are
getting better and better in our tech support group of 'Just say No' with
these things, but this is the world in which our software lives.

What I have seen, over the years, is despite the 'idiot user' syndrome here,
its easier for someone to blame a piece of technology for a problem than it
is to blame themselves. That's human nature. We all do it. We love to
blame Microsoft for worms & viruses, but let's face it - they didn't write
the worms or viruses. We seldom blame the authors of these things, but
focus our attention on the technology that let this stuff through.

So therefore let's put this in context with Firebird. If people have any
reason to blame Firebird for their poor application design or idiot user
fraternity, then they will. After all its easier than blaming themselves
for creating this mess. However I would say that its rare that an
application, in today's technological world, is often the root cause for
problems. And therefore to assume that Firebird is good or bad in light of
this is very dangerous. One could make the exact same arguments against
Oracle, if the database is poorly maintained. But the difference between FB
and Oracle can be measured better in terms of:

a. Cost
b. Level of technical support required to build and manage the data
c. Availability of 3rd part support for the database

In all cases, I would think FB would win hands down in this argument. But
for anyone trying to kick out the Open Source threat from their temples, its
easy to take comments such as Dmitry's in regards to requiring a DBA out of
context and use it to further the existence of the corporate database.

With all of this in mind, I think it is important to evaluate FB on its
merits as a solid, reliable and low cost of ownership SQL database. Yes,
users will screw things up. Yes, we've all been called in to clean this
stuff up. But what about the hundreds of thousands of cases where things
are 'running just fine' that we don't hear about? I'd like to hear these
war stories too because it tends to keep evaluations as objective as
possible.

Unlike M$ and Oracle, there is little financial gain that we have to make
here by telling the truth about the positive sides of FB in the market. As
a software engineer looking to justify the decision to go with FB for my
software applications, it helps to also hear a lot of positive things too.

And if there is a challenge to make an 'idiot proof' application that uses
FB 1.5 embedded, where the user will be forced to backup, etc. I'm up for
the challenge to write it.

Regards,
Myles

===============================
Myles Wakeham
Director of Engineering
Tech Solutions US, Inc.
(480) 451-7440
www.techsol.org