Even the full-blown xBase languages (dBase, FoxPro, Clipper etc.) is so much easier to quickly manipulate data than SQL. The concept of a persistent data-store is built into the language, or rather, the language revolves around data access as opposed to modern languages that are primarily about abstraction.
We've come so far from the simple old days where a TodoMVC would have been just `use todo; browse`.
The company I work for currently still uses it to run reports for the main MRP system. You're bringing so much terror to my Sunday morning.
Hehe, sorry about that. Yes, the product has its limitations, and definitely isn't a fit-for-all-purposes but it does have a very good user interface and that is what I was commenting on. In a way the fact that it is still in use says something about it too, if there were an easy way to replace it functionality wise I'm sure it would have been done.
The problem with tools like these is that they allow people to be far more dangerous than they would otherwise be, but if properly used and with a good eye towards their limitations they can be game changers.
Another product like that is FileMaker pro. I've seen people do absolutely amazing things with it and I've seen people build the stuff of nightmares with it.
I'm talking OG DOS Dataease here. Extract from Oracle, gets manipulated by Dataease, and outputs some HTML files through windows batch files. It's a horrible process that we've virtualized on VMWare so we could have NT running it. This is what happens when management doesn't want to pay for an upgrade. I don't want to talk about it!
Maybe you could convince management that maintaining such a hodgepodge solution is actually more expensive than paying for an upgrade? (I assume you don't work for free :) ).
> I don't want to talk about it!
So don't!
I thought https://fieldbook.com/ was pretty slick. I would love to have a similar UI as an open-source interface to sqlite.
Great find. Another one for the bonus list: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11051676.
You wouldn't have a video of that anywhere, would you? Curious as to what it looks like, and searches on YouTube seem to just turn up a newer graphical version.
No, I'm sorry. I haven't seen that particular version in actual use since I left the bank I worked at in the 80's and 'video' back then would have meant shooting a VHS tape or something to that effect...
Incidentally, those text mode interfaces were wicked fast given the hardware they were running on.
Ah well, figured it was a long shot. Thanks for the stories in any case!
be sure to check out Oracle APEX (https://apex.oracle.com/en/)
I've never seen anything come close to the simplicity with which that package managed to connect the various tables to each other and to generate forms with sensible rule based validation (types, ranges, sets).
Databases for 'lazy people' should have a good look at what has already been built to prevent re-inventing the wheel badly, JSON files are easy for programmers but the world is a lot bigger than that. (Or maybe they intended to write 'databases for lazy programmers', then it makes more sense.)
Edit: they're (surprise!) still around after 30 years:
http://dataeaseuk.com/products/dataease/dataease-dos