The name Paradox is a tribute to the modern trend in database development. On one hand, it is a powerful and complex information management program. On the other hand, it is easy to learn, swift to act, and user-friendly.
What makes Paradox so exceptional? It is a full-featured relational database management system that is versatile, powerful, easy to use, for beginners and experienced users alike, networkable, sophisticated, and helpful.
This book is a comprehensive desktop resource that will help every Paradox user to get oriented quickly to the Paradox environment. This book aims to supplement Borland’s documentation by continuing where that documentation leaves off. Whereas the Borland documentation for Paradox consists of several manuals (the best manuals I have ever seen for a software product) covering each of the major parts of Paradox, Matthews and Shepard consolidate this information into one comprehensive reference book. This book covers Paradox thoroughly and efficiently by presenting what every Paradox user needs to know to use the product effectively. Everything from installing and creating a database to using enhanced PAL and Script features can be found here.
The book’s organization provides both flexibility and ease of use in learning Paradox. The book is primarily organized by operation or task (such as creating a table or printing a report). Indexes organized by command name supplement this task-oriented organization. The book is divided into six parts. Part 1, “The Paradox Environment,” introduces databases and Paradox 4. Part 2, “Creating and Modifying,” describes how a database is created and maintained. Part3, “Querying and Reporting,” presents the process of selecting, combining, manipulating, and retrieving information in tables and creating a report (a printed copy of all this information). Part 4, “Scripts and Programming,” teaches the reader how to create scripts (PAL programs and macros), how to install the Workshop, and how to use it to create applications. The last section is addressed especially to users with some programming experience. Part 5, “Tools and Networking,” describes the comprehensive Tools menu and its options, then explains how to use the Paradox SQL Link to connect to one or more SQL database servers. Part 6 consists of the appendices. Finally, a pull-out command card lists all the shortcut keys and key combinations that can be used in each mode in the Paradox environment.
For readers who have experience with previous releases of Paradox, this book presents the new features of Paradox 4. Enhancements have been made in three areas: modifications seen by end users, internal changes such as speed enhancements, and PAL programming enhancements for the application programmer. This book focuses on the changes visible to end users and the PAL programming enhancements, which include faster response times, networking options, and memo fields, a new field type that allows the user to enter text of virtually any length.
What makes Paradox so elegant, smart, and powerful is the querying process. Paradox provides a function called Query-by-example, whose value is made clear by this book. With Paradox, it is easy to play with the information in tables: select information, reset it, combine and recombine it, recalculate and rearrange it, and enumerate and summarize it. Rather than merely viewing information, this interactive feature helps the user understand it. Paradox responds to the user’s questions almost immediately, allowing the user to pose question after question and play “What if?” with the data.
A Paradox application can be built in two ways: programming it using PAL, or with the Paradox Application Workshop (previously called Paradox Personal Programmer), which is a structured approach to creating the application, leading the user through the building process using a menu system. Workshop generates program code automatically, without the user having to know PAL or programming.
This book is a quick, complete, and easy reference to Paradox 4. The reader will learn how to use Paradox for specific tasks, and will find answers to all possible questions about Paradox. In a word, it is an indispensable desktop resource for anyone using Borland’s powerful RDBMS, Paradox 4.
