Re: [MacPerl] databases

[David Steffen <steffen@biomedcomp.com>]

>I know that this is somewhat off topic

I don't think so

>what databases can people
>recomend for use with MacPerl and CGI scripts?

There is a problem with using MacPerl and databases to make CGI's 
which we have talked about here before.  Briefly, database-backed 
CGIs frequently return a lot of data, and that data can be slow in 
coming.  That being the case, you would like to return something 
(like a title) right away to prevent the browser from timing out or 
the user from giving up.  To do that, you have to save your MacPerl 
CGI with the .acgi extension instead of the .cgi extension. 
Unfortunately, doing that can make the CGI unstable (it can drop hits 
or even crash the Mac).  Having said that...

I have used Butler with MacPerl to create CGI's.  It is good if a bit 
pricey (a few $100).  It is a fairly standard SQL database which is 
nice.

Filemaker gets lots of raves here, but I've never used it so will let 
the Filemaker folks speak for themselves.

I use 4th Dimension a lot and it is good but:
  - it is no cheaper than Butler
  - it is not SQL based
  - interfacing it to MacPerl would be a challenge, I think, having 
never tried.  (4D has its own, integrated scripting language.  What 
makes it shine is its GUI tools, which obviously are irrelevant for 
your application.  To go completely off topic, the latest 4D has 
built-in tools for using a 4D database as a CGI, albeit with somewhat 
expensive licensing requirements.)

-David-
David Steffen, Ph.D.
President, Biomedical Computing, Inc. <http://www.biomedcomp.com/>
Phone: (713) 610-9770 FAX: (713) 610-9769 E-mail: steffen@biomedcomp.com

# ===== Want to unsubscribe from this list?
# ===== Send mail with body "unsubscribe" to macperl-request@macperl.org