New To Rev - Cards And Files?

[Jeanne A. E. DeVoto]

At 9:39 PM +1000 6/17/2005, Scott Kane wrote:
>I'm new to Rev and so far I'm enjoying the
>exploration.  I'm curious though as to how
>powerful the card files are.  I know you
>can use MySQL etc but is it possible to
>use the card files like an ISAM?  I'm sure
>I'm not making myself clear (<g>) - but
>take pity on me - I'm coming from ten
>years in Borland Delphi and I'm spoiled
>by easy database access.  The server style
>databases' are really more than I need
>and would be rather hard for my users
>to tackle.

A stack file is a flat-file database (or at least that's one way of 
looking at it), with each card being a record. Using a stack as the 
database manager for a relatively small, local collection of data 
will work fine.

Advantages include:
- easy to set up, no scripting is required to manage records ("new 
card" creates a new record with all fields, etc.)
- built-in searching (the find command) and sorting work directly on the db
- no need for users to install additional software
- all in one system, so bugs are less likely

Disadvantages include:
- stack files are memory resident, so there are practical limitations 
on total data size
- table views, relational features, etc. don't come for "free" and 
need to be scripted
- won't work for multiple users (unless the db is read-only) without 
some tricks
- not easily scalable
-- 
jeanne a. e. devoto ~ revolution at jaedworks.com
http://www.jaedworks.com