I have used Access + ADO with both Dyalog and APL2000 very
successfully for delivering products on Windoze NT. Although the
Access product itself is not free, you can use and create MDB files
without having access installed on customer machines, not incurring
any additional M$ licence fees. There are two caveats:
1. Access SQL is not standard (but which one is?), or at least is
less standard than some of the others.
2. Access is a personal database system. Full stop. Don't expect
anything more. I'm surprised by how well the current versions hold up
(that is, Access 97 and up) but can't forget how easily databases were
trashed when a Windows 3.0 user turned off their machine without
logging out of a networked database.
With these shortcomings, the convenience of having a free on-board
database and most of all, no installation headaches, was the real
selling point of using access.
I have the code to create a fresh access database. It's in VB.Net but
uses ADO, not ADO.Net (which I consider the most miserable db
interface I have ever had the displeasure of using) and is easily
translated to any .COM-equipped APL. I will dredge it up upon
request.
If I were writing a serious product, I would favour MySQL or PostGres
on principle, use Morten's SQL interface (it makes your application
portable as it's available for Unix, Linux, Dyalog, APL2000, and last
and certainly least, Windoze). If required to use a commercial
database on a server, I would use IBM.
Excel as a database, forget it. The driver stinks, plus tables must
be kept pure with respect to type. If you must, link.
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