Anyone At All Using Valentina?

[Robert Brenstein]

>Poking around database support in Rev, I spent a bit more time 
>looking into Valentina this evening.
>
>Is anyone out there using it? I mean, $200 for a database in an era 
>when mySQL -- one of the best databases on the planet -- is free and 
>ODBC connectors are also mostly free?
>
>So if someone's using it, I'd be mighty curious to know why. It 
>doesn't seem to me to have any advantages at all.
>
>If it was $50 or less, I might license it just for testing locally, 
>but I can set up a local instance of mySQL for free, so....
>
>What am I missing here, people?
>
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Dan Shafer, Revolutionary
>Author of forthcoming 3-book set,
>"Revolution: Programming at the Speed of Thought"
>http://www.revolutionpros.com for More Info


Well, you can take Valentina for a spin for free. The fully 
functional demo has 10-minute per session timeout. Relaunch and you 
have another 10 min. Also, the  Valentina/AppleScript solution is 
only $50, although the vxcmd product for $200/$250 is way better for 
Rev/MC users.

If you are working under OSX and dealing with networking is not an 
issue for you, then MySQL (among other database options under OSX or 
Linux) is fine. It surely is a more mature product and more widely 
deployed. However, if you are concerned with speed, for example, you 
have millions of records and need really fast sorting and searching, 
Valentina is a winner.

Valentina is a nice match for Rev because of its multiplatform 
support. It runs under OS9, OSX, and Windows. Unix is also in 
Valentina's future AFAIK. Further, Valentina allows you to switch 
development environments should there be a need (as much as we love 
Rev, our clients or projects may require using something else).

Then, many Rev users graduate to using a true database engine after 
using stacks as simple databases and prefer to continue with the 
database fully embedded into the stacks/standalone. Valentina is it 
unless Serendipity Library suffice. Switching from fields/cards as db 
to Valentina (using its full interface not RevDB) is relatively 
simple.

Consider also that quite a few people using Valentina distribute 
their products on CDs. I think that excludes MySQL. And the 
forthcoming Valentina server will allow to mix local and remote 
usage, allowing flexible scaling and distributed solutions.

I personally use MC/Valentina combo to produce, programmatically but 
offline, web sites from db content as well as supporting online 
access to databases using MC-based CGI on a server that runs under 
Mac OS 9.2.

Robert