Hello Helen,

> If you have the BDE configured for 'local' it will not access a database across a LAN.

I never explicitely came across such a setting, and - unfortunately - I had/have
to deal with that dinosaur of an engine a lot.
BDE is using aliases to connect to different databases.
You specify the database within each alias. BDE will access whichever
database you are specifying there, local or remote.

> I have no idea how well the very last-ever InterBase
> driver (v.5.2) works with Firebird 2.0.

I would not use that INTRBASE driver myself, because it performs
horribly with Dialect 3. You have what you could call a choice as
long as you stick with Dialect 1, which of course can not be
recommended either.
For Dialect 3 the only remaining solution is to go via ODBC.
Vladimir Tsvigun did a lot of extra work to make the IBPhoenix driver
working very fine together with the old BDE back in 2004.

> But if you are using the BDE over a network, nothing will be fast.

While that is definitely true from a database developers' POV, it
really is not that bad from a users' POV, _IF_ the application
developer takes care for the special needs of SQL servers.
Most BDE-using developers have been thinking too much in terms of
Paradox, dBase and Access for historical reasons.

Fortunately, we are already nearly out of the old application and will
finally be able to drop the BDE. 1 more year or such, and "goodbye
BDE".

But there never has been a speed problem with our ~50+ users
simultaneously accessing 4-6 FB databases via BDE all concurrently.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
André Knappstein, Controlling
Verwaltungs- und Erlebniszentrum Marina Rünthe
beta Eigenheim GmbH
Hafenweg 4
59192 Bergkamen-Rünthe