[WEB4LIB] Re: Databases: Access, Oracle, Sybase

[Chris Gray]

The Ashenfelter book devotes a chapter to ColdFusion.

Philip Greenspun on ColdFusion: "Nobody has anything bad to say about
Allaire's Cold Fusion but I can't see that it offers any capabilities beyond
what you get with Microsoft's ASP. History has not been kind to people who
compete against the Microsoft monopoly, particularly those whose products
aren't dramatically better."

You don't need Access running on the server with ColdFusion; you just need a
driver for Access mdb files that ColdFusion can connect to.

With ColdFusion you add code to your HTML pages, not to a separate file.

Chris Gray
University of Waterloo Library
"You can't communicate complexity, only an awareness of it." -Alan J. Perlis

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib at webjunction.org [mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org]On
Behalf Of Michael A. Weber
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2000 12:39 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: Databases: Access, Oracle, Sybase

Martin,

I downloaded a trial copy of Cold Fusion.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to
get into it enough in the short time of the trial membership to understand
how the database functions work.

To run an MS access database (using Cold Fusion) do you have to have MS
access loaded on your server or do you export the file as I described in my
first message?

Does Cold Fusion added code to your HTML page, or MS Access; or does it
store coding in a separate program file like Perl?

Does your LITA citation cover my questions? (Sorry for asking so many!)

Thanks, Martin!  I appreciate it!

Mike Weber



At 11:09 AM 6/7/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Mike, you might want to take a look at the LITA regional institute on web
databases
>(http://www.lita.org/institut/index.html) and this article:
http://www.lita.org/ital/1804_antelman.html
>
>I'm currently working with the Cold Fusion product that can create web
accessible databases from MS Access (and many other) databases.
>
>Martin
>
>***********************************************
>Martin R. Kalfatovic
>Digital Projects Librarian
>Smithsonian Institution Libraries
>202-357-1521
>kalfatovicm at sil.si.edu
>
>>>> "Michael A. Weber" <webermi at alvernia.edu> 06/07/00 10:42AM >>>
>Web4libers:
>
>I getting curious about web databases.  I want to learn more about
>programming Access, Oracle, Sybase, Perl, and other databases.
>
>I am wondering:
>
>1) What are the strengths and weaknesses of these databases?
>2) Which ones are easiest to learn?
>3) What online and print resources are available that will give me a
>practical "dive-in, and just do it" introduction to these databases?
>
>Right now our webhost has constructed a database that uses a Perl program
>to read data from a text file.  We can update this text file using MS
Access.
>
>However I am finding that I need to update more than just the data.  We
>want to add fields to the database and/or update the functionality.  I am
>also interested in constructing some new databases.  In order to do this I
>would need to learn Perl.  Since this doesn't seem to be an easy task, I am
>finding that I need to pay a programmer $1500 every time I make a simple
>update.  This being the case, I would like to be able to make some simple
>databases on my own.
>
>More Questions:
>
>1) Is the database that I described above an Access database?
>2) If not, how does an Access database run?  Do you need Perl or another
>programming language?
>3) Do you need Perl (or another programming language) to bridge between
>your HTML pages and other databases such as Oracle and Sybase?
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Mike Weber
>
>
>
>Michael Weber
>Dr. Frank A. Franco Library
>ALVERNIA COLLEGE
>400 St. Bernardine Street
>Reading PA  19518
>(610) 796-8352
>(610) 796-8347 Fax
>webermi at alvernia.edu
>
>
>Attachment Converted: "u:\mailbox\attach\Martin Kalfatovic.vcf"
>
Michael Weber
Dr. Frank A. Franco Library
ALVERNIA COLLEGE
400 St. Bernardine Street
Reading PA  19518
(610) 796-8352
(610) 796-8347 Fax
webermi at alvernia.edu