> it would be really better to proove, how much better
> IBO is :-))

I think Nick has covered much of IBOs capability very well. I would
add something that also refers back to what Jason said earlier...

> Very little of what the BDE supported is not supported
> with IBO.

This makes the creation of IBO-aware components very easy. Not only
is IBO very comprehensive in its support, but the interfaces to the
classes are very similar. This allows you to take an existing TDB*
control and convert it to TIB_* very quickly. Most recently I did
this with the Dream Company DCMemo (syntax highlighting) control.
Sure the first draft was a bit rough, and some optimisation was
required, but I was up and going very quickly.

Even better, is the ability to re-use parts of IBO directly. If you
browse the IBC_BitCheck.rtf document in the IBO source you will find
an example of how to write a new IBO aware component writing very
little code - because you can literally include much of the required
code directly from IBO. My EnhComponents take advantage of this IBO
feature, which also makes it much easier to keep upto date with IBO as
it grows.

Along the same lines are the many useful functions hidden in IB_Parse
and IB_Utils. These can time and effort during coding. (Hint, hint,
Jason. Its about time these were documented so they are more easily
found and used in application code. :-)


As an additional statement about the support of IBO. In the more than
3 years that I have been using IBO there have been very few
"breakages" as a result of changes in IBO. This is despite the fact
that I derive many of my own components from the IBO base (which is
often where changes in the base will be noticed). I believe this
demonstrates the maturity and excellent design of IBO.

I think Jason is making some changes for IBO v4 which may require some
minor changes in projects (renamed units etc), but he has always been
careful and considerate of these impacts. I only wish I could say the
same for some of the other component libraries that I use.


Like Nick I use IBO-aware components almost exclusively. Before I
found IBO I spent years trying to create useful controls to work with
the BDE - and they were almost never totally successful due to the
constraints of the BDE. Then I found IBO and discovered that I could
throw most of my earlier work out - because Jason already had the
functionality built into the IBO controls.


To summarise. IBO has let me build applications have both good
performance and ease of use. It came at a time when I was almost
giving up on getting either. Thank you Jason!


Geoff Worboys
Telesis Computing