Talk:DBase

Praise for dBase
Dbase is a excellent program I am still using it today. It is so easy and so powerfull. I do hope its life will goes on.

david

I agreed with you Mr. David, I'm still using this realy powerfull language,espcially when I'm thinking to apply an idea for solving a problem.You maybe astonished if I told that sometimes I use Dbase4+ to make some variable diagrames by using loops and the simple definitions of creat window. Mufeed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.90.160.98 (talk) 12:54, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Unix
Was there every a Unix version?


 * Never mind, appears there was. If anyone know which Unixes it was ported to, that might help.

8/2/06 dBase 2.6 is a great tool. Try it you'll like it.

There was never a Macintosh version of dBASE II That is an error

20:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ndunlop (talk • contribs)

dBASE is a trademark
"dBASE" is the correct name of this product. Although there are several popular ways to capitalize the dBASE name, the trademark listed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office is lowercase "d", uppercase "BASE". The dBASE trademarks listed are filed under Serial Number 73465470, Registration Number 1325541 and Serial Number 73715289, Registration Number 1538129 with the United States Patent and Trademark Office

Further, the WP:MOSTM very clearly says:


 * Trademarks in CamelCase are a judgement call. CamelCase may be used where it reflects general usage and makes the trademark more readable.

dBase is no more readable than dBASE. As such, this article should properly be retitled and the name references corrected.

Mike 06:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Unless there is a strong objection, I am going to revert all "dBase" to the correct capitalization of "dBASE" in the next few weeks. Mike (talk) 04:19, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * And I just double-checked in my trusty old (but still useful at times) dBASE III PLUS and that is how it reads on the first screen. So go ahead and change to dBASE. Manassehkatz (talk) 14:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

dBASE vs Clipper
The very first paragraph reads: "(dBASE) lost market share to competitors such as Paradox, Clipper, FoxPro, and Microsoft Access". Clipper entry states that it's a language (or compiler) used by dBASE. So how could they be competitors? (I have not used any of them and not 100 % sure so I don't want to change it myself) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.168.125.217 (talk) 19:55, 24 February 2007 (UTC).


 * Clipper is a compiler for dBase with many extensions. As a compiled language, programs run faster in Clipper than in dBase and over time many applications that started as dBase applications were switched to Clipper and did not require dBase to run. However, Clipper would never have existed without dBase - the basic language was the same.Manassehkatz 05:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Clipper was a separate product produced by a small company formed by some former Ashton-Tate employees. It was a competitor in all respects. The speed differences between a compiled program and an interpreter can be great. Due to various reasons Ashton-Tate elected not to start development on a dBASE compiler until the late 80s shortly before the company was purchased by Borland. Kmund 13:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

dBASE 'standard' file format no longer standard
The article seems to imply that the .DBF file format is standard across all applications and dialects. Perhaps there should be mention of dBASE II, dBASE III, dBASE IV, Clipper, Codebase and other dialects and products that no longer conform to a single file standard. Will Nitschke 02:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Links
Jack Hatfield was linking to an olympic medalist, rather than the developer. I removed the link. Sandwiches99 (talk) 19:38, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

DBF
STOP removing the external link to FastDBF, an open source, FREE FOR ALL implementation of the DBF specification for .NET. People find it helpful, so why are you being annoying?? I am not pedaling a product here so STOP removing the LINK DAMN IT. Alacevic (talk) 11:48, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * (merged from my User talk page) Cander0000 (talk) 19:07, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see why we need to advertise any products, free or not. This page discusses dBASE.  It is not a page for advertising products that can read/write .DBF files.  Consider putting it on the Xbase page instead, that is at least a little more applicable.  Mike (talk) 03:28, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Recent History
THe secont paragraph (Recent history) looks like an advertisement for the current version of the product. Required a review. --Vssun (talk) 17:35, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Paradox should be in the history section
dBase vs. Paradox competition was crucial to Ashton-Tate's decline, and as a precursor to Borland's acquisition of dBase. If there's a history section mentioning competitors at all, then Paradox should be in there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.110.153.219 (talk) 02:42, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

still use dbase
I still use dbase. but then don't actually do much programming if any at all. I did take c++ clases but returned to dbase.

One of the items not mentioned much in the article was the debugger included with dbase 4 and beyond. You could set break points based on any dbase command. and watch memory variables plus switch to the command line and back. Much better then any c or c++ debugger I have used.

Plus with dbase 5 you had a more or less complete programming environment that could compile to stand alone programs.

but I guess I'm still just an old fuddy duddy LOL. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beaslbob (talk • contribs) 20:23, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Shameless Promo!
This article reads like straight company promo. It could use a really vigorous haircut to bring it down to earth. One section in Recent Version History says,"Additional key features of dBASE PLUS 10 include:" Another hypes,"New! Easy DOS Configuration Wizard simplifies the setup . . ." This sort of promotional blather isn't what Wikipedia is for and most of it should be deleted. Santamoly (talk) 04:29, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree. Any sentence or paragraph from the "Recent history" section whose only citation is a link to dbase.com should be removed. Any objections? — PhilHibbs | talk 14:10, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

dBase IV?
The article says: "This changed with the disastrous introduction of dBase IV, whose design and stability were so poor that many users switched to other products." but the section on dBase IV doesn't give any further details. It sounds like this could be fleshed out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.202.33.17 (talk) 13:54, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Vague description: Apple II port
In the heading there is stated:

"[Ashton-Tate] licensed it and re-released it as dBASE II, and later ported to Apple II and IBM PC computers running DOS."

DOS is a very ambiguous term. First "DOS" itself is just a description for "Disk Operating System". The text redirects to DOS which refers to MS- and PC-DOS. Not perfect but good enough.

But then, the Apple II has its own flavor of a Disk Operating System, called Apple DOS and a later implementation being called Apple ProDOS. The Apple II family have a MOS Technology 6502 CPU and no x86 and thus not even remotely binary compatible.

After extensive searching online, I have not found any evidence that a port to Apple DOS existed. There is also no further mentioning of Apple in the rest of the article. But the Apple II can be equipped with a Z80 card and so is able to run existing CP/M applications, including dBASE II.

Unless somebody comes up with a proof that a native Apple II version existed — that's what I assume to be the outcome of a "port" — I'll delete this mentioning at the end of this week.

--Poc (talk) 17:04, 12 December 2022 (UTC)