[KLUG Members] Fwd: Good review of KOffice, here's info on databases and KDE's Rekall/Kugar

[Bryan-TheBS-Smith]

FYI.  BTW, the review I speak of is here:
http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2812025,00.html

-- TheBS

-------- Original Message --------
From: Bryan-TheBS-Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org>
Subject: Good review of KOffice, here's info on databases and KDE's
Rekall/Kugar
To: linux-feedback@cnet.com, mpd@ideamation.com
CC: jaxlug-list@jaxlug.org

Mr. Deignan --

I enjoyed your review of KOffice.  I was very glad to see that you
to the import/export capability "out-of-the-way" quickly, then moved
on to the apps themselves and their capabilities.  Most reviews of
non-MS Office suites concentrate too much on just the import/export
with MS Office and that really puts any product in a bad light, even
some of the commercial Microsoft suites for Windows.  Worse yet, in
the case of KDE, they don't talk about why KWord doesn't act like MS
Word because it is a DTP app not a WP.  I'm glad to see that you did
-- especially for those of us who prefer DTP over WP -- let alone
those of us consider WP a pre-GUI technology.

Now regarding databases.  Understand that many of us in the Open
Source community have "frowned upon" the commodity single-user
database**.  As any contemporary Windows sysadmin will tell you, we
are sick and tired of the Jet-Access approach to applications.  Not
just for end-user database creation, but so many vertical apps from
software vendors use it.  I have easily spent upto 50% of my
sysadmin duties in the past just maintaining a few Jet-Access
wielding vertical apps for a 3-man accounting department at a small
firm.  And these were all costly, shrink-wrapped applications with
paid support and required heafty, on-site consulting regularly
outside of those support contracts.

What we have in the KDE world is a "front-end" xBase/SQL builder
that ties into full-up, multiuser SQL "back-ends."  Enter Rekall, a
front-end KDE's integrated KDE-DB component for database design and
management (URLs below).  Rekall is a "code free" (unlike Borland's
Kylix/dbExpress) WYSIWYG tool that allows quick and easy creation,
although it also includes Python as a scripting language for those
that want it.  Almost every Linux distro released today comes with
MySQL and/or PostgreSQL pre-installed and "ready-to-go."  In fact, I
find them much easier to setup and use (which is largely when you
install Linux itself) than MS SQL, even in RedHat's freely
redistributable release (i.e. from downloaded ISO images on the
Internet) -- plus they are much more secure by default (without
being overly complex).

Please check Rekall out the next time you have the chance to look at
KDE/KOffice.  Although it is not a "direct replacement" for the
single-user MS Access approach, it _does_ offer the
"easy-of-development" of MS Access, while taking advantage of
_real_, multiuser, database back-ends without any additional setup
(at least in how RedHat is currently packaged with PostgreSQL). 
Corporate database developers and vertical app software houses
should seriously check out the Rekall+PostgreSQL for reliable, ACID
database application development.  And even Joe GUI user, who
occassionally uses MS Access, might take a look anytime they
consider creating a multi-user database.

Rekall:  A database designer and manager front-end to KDE-DB
http://www.thekompany.com/projects/rekall/?dhtml_ok=1

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
   SmithConcepts, Inc.

P.S.  For reporting, check out Kugar, an XML-based reporting tool
(which can be paired with an XML generating WYSIWYG): 
http://www.thekompany.com/projects/kugar/

**Note:  Single-user databases?  That's what a spreadsheet is for
IMHO!  Just in case that explains "my bias."  At least those of us
who regularly used 1-2-3 still think so.  Because MS Access exists,
MS Excel "competes" with it, so it has never gained the data
manipulation capabilities that 1-2-3 nor Quattro Pro have (at least
IMHO).  I mean, if you're going to build a database, build a _real_
database!  With Rekall, it's not that difficult and a quite
"code-free" venture today.

-- 
Bryan "TheBS" Smith    mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org    chat:thebs413
Engineer   AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc.  http://www.linux-wlan.org
President    SmithConcepts, Inc.     http://www.SmithConcepts.com