In message <4b9f04c29eJeremy@...>
Jeremy C B Nicoll <jeremy@...> wrote:

> In article <Marcel-1.53-1203111850-b49tRkF@...>,
> Wim Ekels <wim@...> wrote:
>
> > I've waited a bit before an answer, as I thought others would jump in.
> > I was surprised about the small amount of reactions and more surprised
> > by the very negative one.
>
> I'm not an S-Base user but I lurk here, partly because I wanted to know
> more about the product in case I ever decided to use it. The rumours
> I've read about it mostly suggest it's very complicated, . . .

My own case is not typical, as I've been using S-Base since it first
appeared in 1993 or 4 (I forget which). It is true that there is a
fair amount of work involved in creating an application from scratch,
as unless you use "SAM" (the automated code generator in S-Base) there
is very little that can be accomplished with it 'straight out of the
box'.

The tutorial accompanying S-Base constructs address-type databases of
increasing complexity, but to my mind a more useful tutorial would be
to help the user create a shell program which could then be used for
each new project. To some extent this is what Steve Turnbull's Acorn
User articles are doing.


> and not too well documented.

The manual that came with my copy of S-Base 2 comprises 244 pages of
tutorial and 382 pages of reference. Each function and command is
fully documented, with examples and cross references to related
commands/functions.

>
> BUT, maybe it's aimed at professional programmers? And maybe the doc is
> aimed at programmers too - if that's so then I'd expect "normal" users to
> feel all at sea. I guess it would also depend on how much a user or
> programmer already knew about database theory, especially how relational
> databases work.
>

When I started using S-Base, I had a (very) little experience of
Pascal from an OU degree course, and no other programming knowledge
at all. I had a problem which needed a relational database program to
solve, and so I used bits of the supplied tutorial and browsed the
reference section as necessary. The point is that you don't have to
know any of the more esoteric bits to construct a passable
application. It was years before I ventured away from S-Base's own
data files for any of my storage requirements or used the 'oscli' or
'sys' commands to stray outside the S-Base environment.

I've never bothered to learn BASIC, because S-Base is so much easier
to code, and there are so many more inbuilt functions. If I want to
test a snippet of code I can write a self-contained function in any
open S-Base app and then call it from the S-Base command line. I use
that tactic a great deal to develop ideas.

S-Base started out for me as a database creator. Once I had become
relatively competent at using it, and started exploring what else it
could do, it has become the application 'shell' I always use for all
of my projects, in the same vein as DrWimp, WimpBasic, etc. So far I
have not found anything it cannot handle, though to be fair I have
little interest in processor intensive things like graphics and sound.

--
Robin Hampshire
Robin@...