Re: [WinMac] Re: Virtual PC and dde

Leonard Rosenthol(leonardr[at]Adobe.COM)
Sat, 12 Sep 1998 20:00:10 -0400

At 1:59 PM -0500 9/12/98, Belinda J. Wagner Ph.D. wrote:
>I believe the original comment was referring to attempting dde between a
>Mac file and a PC app. I agree. Dde won't happen because the Mac platform
>lacks the appropriate drivers. Neither Apple, Microsoft, nor any
>third-party vendor I've spoken with is developing them.
>
        Actually DDE, isn't a driver issue - it's a protocol issue. Much
like why you don't see Apple events on Windows. For example, I don't know
if they still support it, but older versions of Excel on the Mac _DID_
support DDE on the Mac!

>Virtually same story with ODBC drivers.
>
        That's not true! There are a bunch of ODBC drivers available for
the Mac, though certainly not in the numbers that there are for Wintel.

>Sure, I can achieve similar results on a Mac, but it requires ALOT more
>programming. The Windows platform is far simpler. Plus, the ease of
>Visual Basic makes it a snap to generate extremely user-friendly apps to
>construct and submit user queries.
>
        No argument there!

        And why is that - because the PC sits in more enterprise sites than
the Mac and VB was targetted at the IS/IT shops in those sites. The #1 use
of VB is building connectivity to corporate databases - that's why it's so
easy to do, that's where they focus their time.

>Bottom line: no one has come up with a Mac solution that's simpler.
>
        And I wouldn't expect to see one. No $$ to be made there...

LDR
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Leonard Rosenthol <mailto:leonardr@adobe.com>
Designated Free Electron (612) 766-4718 (Minn)
Adobe Systems Incorporated (215) 233-5270 (Philly)

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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Sat Sep 12 1998 - 17:11:57 PDT