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Approach for OS/2 Warp 4
By: Walter Metcalf
Date: 05/21/98
I have been fascinated by databases since my first computer, which was a Commodore
64. Dissatisfied with the accounting program I was using, I tried to write my own
using a simple database program available for the C-64. I did quite well too--until
I exceeded the 4K memory available for user programs! (Note: that's 4 kilobytes.)
Since then I have been "on the hunt" for the perfect database, and have
tried many in the process.
The latest database I have checked out is Approach, part of the Lotus SmartSuite
for OS/2 Warp 4 package. Before I get into specifics of my examination, I'd like
to briefly survey some of the more notable features that aren't covered later.
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Approach, as well as the other members of SmartSuite, features a Team Approach
which allows different people in the same office, or using the Internet feature,
possibly around the world, to create and work on a database, simultaneously
or at different times.
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Using its unique Internet system, Approach can access tables and databases
on the internet as if they were on your local drive. This allows your Approach
session to reach literally around the world.
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Approach allows you to create database tables either by selecting one of several
pre-existing templates, called SmartMasters, or by starting from scratch and
building your own. I personally have found many of the SmartMasters too complex
for me to understand well enough to modify them confidently, so I have always
built my own. But for a one-time job where time is at a premium, using a SmartMaster
could be a real time-saver.
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Approach comes with a very versatile and generally easy-to-use interface.
As soon as it starts, Approach presents you with a dialogue giving you 3 options:
select a SmartMaster, select an existing database with a Browse button, or
select "blank database," to create a new database; the last one
is the default. If you choose to select the default, Approach first presents
you with another dialogue where you define which fields you want, their lengths,
and their types. More complex options can be added now or later. After requesting
a path and filename for the new database, Approach creates a simple form and
table, or worksheet, using the fields you defined earlier. Now, using the
menus, you can enter your data, create another table, create forms, reports,
etc.,. Once a database is initially created most of your manipulation of the
database will be done via these worksheets. There is no stated limit to the
number of worksheets you can have, and it's important to realize that each
worksheet may display data from any combination of fields and tables. This
makes the worksheets extremely powerful. Approach also allows you to create
other forms as well as reports. These are done using a simple point and click
method; drag and drop can be used to modify them once they have been created.
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Finally Approach does have a few problems to work out. First, it has a couple
of bugs:
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Every time I try to create a query of more than 3 conditions using the
Query by Box feature, Approach crashes.
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I found when I closed Approach, even with all databases closed, using
the 'X' icon next to the title bar, it more often than not either crashed
or hung. In either case, Approach remained "stuck" in the
system so that it could not be closed or restarted without first rebooting
the system. Using File|Exit Approach seems to be somewhat more successful.
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Second, I have a bit of a problem with any program that occupies 11
MB of RAM with no data loaded. Lotus (IBM) needs to understand
not every workstation, even in enterprises, has a high-end Pentium or
Pentium II!
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Finally, I may be picking at nits, but I wish Approach had the ability
to save the main window size and position. Little things like this can
add a lot to an application's ease of use.
During my hunt for the perfect database, I came up with the following list of
requirements or standards I looked for:
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Relationality
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Easy-to-use interface
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Powerful built-in programming, or scripting, language
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Referential integrity
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Decent speed.
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Flexible query engine, accessible through the UI as well by a script.
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Compatibility with a wide variety of data formats.
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Complete, easy-to-understand documentation.
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Tight security.
Understand that these are my standards. Clearly each manufacturer has its
own set of standards and emphases, that explains why there is so much variety among
the DBMS's available today. These standards are what I look for in a database before
I fork out the cash. They will also give us a basis on which to examine Approach
and compare it with some other database systems. Since no database has all of them,
I look for a product with as many as possible. Let's look at Approach now and see
how it fares against these standards.
1. Relationality
Essentially a database is relational if it can be viewed by the user as a
set of tables that can manipulated according to a strict set of rules. Virtually
all modern databases today are relational, and Approach is no different. A typical
example of a simple relational database is a business that keeps a record of each
sales invoice in a table indexed using an invoice number. Naturally, each invoice
contains the customer's name, or customer no., as one of its elements, or fields.
To make billing possible, the business must also keep a record of each customer,
his or her address, phone number, and other information in another table. Since
each customer may have multiple invoices, these tables are in what is called a one
to many relationship. Using the join feature (by selecting Create|Join), you set
this up by joining the customer number on the invoice to the customer number on
the customer invoice using drag and drop. Close the Join dialogue and you're done!
Thereafter when you open the invoice table, Approach automatically accesses the
customer table, allowing you to select fields from either table in any query, form,
or report you wish to build. The ability to access multiple tables and thereby avoid
duplicating data is what makes relational databases so useful.
Approach is clearly relational, and so receives top marks in this category.
2. Easy-to-use Interface
Approach's GUI interface is superb. Much of it is drag and drop as we have already
seen. Reports, views, tables, and forms can all be constructed and modified using
drag and drop. On top of this the action bars and toolbars make frequently repeated
procedures a snap. In addition, by clicking on the extreme left of the toolbar row,
you can select a different toolbar set from the ones already provided, or you can
make your own.
My only complaint is that sometimes the location of menu items is somewhat confusing:
for example, too many functions are lumped under the Create menu. As a result, to
delete a field, a join, etc., you have to select the Create menu. Those items should
appear on the Edit menu.
One feature of Approach I especially like is its unobtrusive monitoring of each
of your keystrokes and mouse operations. Once you get used to it, it's really quite
helpful. In most dialogues, there is an OK or Close button that is initially greyed
out. As soon as you type a valid expression this button turns black, and stays black
as long as what you have enter remains valid. As soon as an expression is erroneous
the button turns grey again. This can be a big help in correcting typos and other
errors.
Approach scores very high in this area.
3. Powerful, built-in programming or scripting languages
This requirement comes out of my programming background. I have written several
applications using database systems, and no matter how good the UI is, you can't
really harness the power of a modern database if you don't have the ability to program
it. In addition, programming is almost essential for automating routine database
operations.
I should first mention that Approach contains several levels of macros and script
facilities with which you can create scripts and macros directly from the keyboard.
One method involves a sophisticated keystroke recording techniques simple enough
for even a beginner to Approach to use.
The big gun in Approach's programming arsenal is the proprietary language called
LotusScript. The manuals, which come in Acrobat form on CD, describe LotusScript
as a version of Basic which offers in addition standard structured programming facilities
and a set of language extensions that enable object-oriented application development.
Moreover, applications written in LotusScript will run with the other products in
Smartsuite for OS/2 Warp 4, including WordPro and Freelance Graphics. If that isn't
enough, LotusScript applications can also call functions written in Rexx as well
as in C! Although I haven't used LotusScript yet, I am very much anticipating doing
so.
I would rate Approach as excellent when it comes to programming ability.
4. Referential Integrity
For a long while I used Paradox for DOS to create my applications. Paradox was and
is a fine DBMS, and I became quite enamoured with it. However it has one fatal flaw.
Its designers failed to give it referential integrity. As a result my clients and
I wound up with corrupted data on more than one occasion, which cost me heavily
in terms of embarrassment, time, and money. Having been burned so badly, I now won't
consider a database product without this feature.
What is this strange-sounding piece of jargon I'm so insistent on, anyway? Simply
put, a DBMS has referential integrity if it has the ability to ensure that
changes to one table that affect other tables are transmitted to those other tables.
Consider again the example of the business with customer and invoice tables. What
would happen if the owner accidentally deleted a customer who still had outstanding
invoices from the customer table? He'd have a number of what I call "orphaned"
records: invoices for customers you had no record of. Paradox for DOS would and
did allow that to happen under certain circumstances.
Approach does have referential integrity. Unfortunately I had to do considerable
research of my own, including digging through some third party documentation of
Approach to determine this. (In particular, see Approach 97 for Windows for Dummies,
IDG:1997, Ray & Ray, p.106.) Thanks to Approach's poor documentation (which
I'll go into more later), I was unable to determine this from any information provided
by Lotus. Given the importance of this feature, I find it odd that Lotus doesn't
advertise the fact that Approach possesses relational integrity. To the best of
my knowledge the only other OS/2 database possessing this feature is DB2. None of
the xBase style databases, including OnCmd, have it.
When building a database, Approach enables referential integrity by default,
but the feature can be modified or completely disabled, although this is not advisable
under normal circumstances. The normal way to set or modify this feature is through
the join function. After joining the tables, select the Options button. You'll see
a set of four check boxes, with the two Insert boxes checked. Left alone referential
integrity is enabled. Modifying these settings weakens referential integrity or
disables it altogether. (I consider it almost "criminal" that Lotus doesn't
do a better job in the online help of explaining the potentially dangerous consequences
of changing these settings, especially considering that once set, they cannot be
changed.) As I suggested, once the options are set and the Join dialogue completed,
the options cannot be changed with first destroying the join relationships. This
provides an added level of security.
Approach receives top marks in this category.
5. Decent Speed
I have a straight Pentium 200 with 64 MB ram plus fast wide SCSI hard drives. I
ran a series of tests on a database consisting a single table consisting of 10 integer
fields and 20,000 records using three DBMS's including Approach. The table exists
in the form of an ASCII delimited text file. Here are the results:
DBMS Speed
Comparisons
Operation
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Approach for OS/2
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R:Base for OS/2 v4.5++
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Paradox for DOS 4.5
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Load & Convert ASCII Table
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164 sec
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22 sec
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5 sec
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Reverse Sort on Single Field
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29 sec
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4 sec
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1.5 sec
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You can see Approach's speed leaves a lot to be desired! As if that weren't
bad enough, Approach locks out the WPS while it is processing! Since Approach for
OS/2 is a port from Windows, there is some hope its speed will improve as it continues
to develop.
Approach receives a rating of poor in this category.
6. Flexible query engine, accessible through the UI, as well by a script
Approach has the best query engine I have ever seen. For those of you a bit rusty
on your database terminology, the query facility allows you to search the database
for those records matching a set of what may be very complex conditions. Using our
example above, a simple query could be, "which customers bought more than $10,000
worth of goods last year?" The query engine is what gives databases much of
their power and usefulness, because it provides the ability to ask your database
questions. Approach gives you no fewer than four ways to create queries from the
user interface! These methods include Lotus' own Query by Box (a graphical way method
of actually laying out your query using the mouse), the standard SQL, and the more
usual method of specifying one directly from a record template. When using LotusScript,
query operations are embedded in the logic of the script using such statements as
Select Case and Do While.
Approach receives top marks in this category.
7. Compatibility with a variety of data formats
Again, Approach shines here. Approach allows importing from 11 different file formats!
In addition, like many modern databases, you can actually use files from
Paradox, dBase, Foxpro, and several other applications without converting or importing
them. While Approach defaults to opening in dBase IV format, you can change the
file format simply by selecting a different option on the combo box. Of course,
Approach is completely compatible with its "colleague" Lotus 1-2-3, and
as we have seen applications developed with LotusScript can be used with other products
in Lotus SmartSuite.
Approach receives top marks here.
8. Complete, easy-to-understand documentation
This is without a doubt Approach's worst area. The printed documentation
is a manual of about 50 pages. It is intended only as a brief introduction to using
Approach, and as far as it goes it's not too bad. Two LotusScript documents in PDF
format can optionally be copied to your hard drive at installation time. Together
they contain about 600 pages, and they are quite good. These manuals are easily
the best documentation accompanying Approach.
However, for the vast amount of your work on Approach, you have only the online
help to turn to. Even an online manual in book format would probably be a big help.
The online help is not only inadequate, it is outright obtuse. One error message
declares, "This operation is not revertible." I had to search through
two dictionaries and an encyclopedia to discover the meaning of "revertible"!
The emphasis seems to be to help you understand what to do in certain situations,
but gives you little information on why you should do it or what Approach does when
you select that option. Rather than clarify how Approach works, most of the time
it obfuscates it. Without some documentation other than this kind of online help,
the user is left feeling lost and frustrated a good deal of the time.
Approach gets a rating of poor in this category.
9. Tight security
Any serious database must take steps to ensure unauthorized individuals can't view
or alter sensitive data, such as payroll records. Approach does this in two ways,
both depending upon passwords. First, if a password is assigned to a table, then
all the data in the table is encrypted before it is stored on disk. Second, the
much-advertised Team feature of Approach allows the administrator to assign many
levels of security, each with its own set of accessible fields. Each field available
to a user can be set to read-only or read-write.
Approach receives top marks in this category.
As you can see, the only places where Approach falls down, besides the few bugs
I mentioned, are speed and documentation. As serious as both of these are, Approach
is outstanding in so many other areas that Approach deserves an overall rating of
very good (or B+ if you want more specificity). As I said at the outset Approach
for OS/2 Warp isn't perfect, but it gets the job done (if somewhat slowly at times)
and is overall the best one I have seen to date.
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