[nine_k]

Such tools existed and were popular in 1990s: DBase, Clipper, FoxPro.

They worked pretty well in their domain: data entry and report generation, with lightweight transaction processing and general computation.

Then happened the internet and client-server architectures, and these do not map as neatly onto local, single-user, single-transaction tables.

[CRConrad]

> Such tools existed and were popular in 1990s: DBase, Clipper, FoxPro.

Also Crystal Reports, Paradox...

> They worked pretty well in their domain: data entry and report generation, with lightweight transaction processing and general computation.

Having bought Ashton Tate, Borland got DBase and Interbase in addition to Paradox, and built data access components into the VCL class library (in effect "almost-first-class citizens" of the language), which IMO made Delphi the natural and superior successor to those languages: Not just "lightweight", but fully advanced (i.e, ~C++-level) general computation. (And with transaction processing built into the RDBMS connection components.)

> Then happened the internet and client-server architectures, and these do not map as neatly onto local, single-user, single-transaction tables.

Weeelll... Seen the spate of recent posts on here about how SQLite is good enough for pretty much anything? :-) And arguably, that's where Delphi was at too, over twenty years ago: AFAICR, there was a "Fishbase" (facts about tropical fish) demo included with Delphi, which in one variant could be built as a standalone Web service / server.

Also, AFAICS, that's where Free Pascal / Lazarus is at now, only using SQLite / Firebird / MySQL / PostgreSQL (and lots of other DBMSes) in stead of DBase / Clipper / FoxPro / Crystal Reports / Paradox. (I've been planning to look into that a bit closer myself, but haven't got around to it. Procrastinating away too much of my time on Hacker News, I suppose. :-( )

[CRConrad]

Duh, forgot to mention: "Fishbase" was based on a Paradox (IIRC; could have been DBase) file.

Edit: Also, for FP/Lazarus that's probably SQLite and newer RDBMSes not "in stead of" but in addition to the old file formats and RDBMSes.

[molsongolden]

One of my favorite programs ever was built on DBase in the mid-90s.

Installing or moving the entire application and database to a new PC was as easy as "drag folder onto flash drive" -> "drag folder off of flash drive".

Instant loading, tiny file sizes, but it became too complicated for users when 64-bit windows pushed 16-bit usage into VMs.

[badsectoracula]

I have a ton of games, bought or downloaded from a variety of places, some even for different systems and some more than once (e.g. Steam or GOG or sometimes some Humble Bundle bundle giving a game i already had) and in some cases a different version. Most of them are on my external HDD.

One thing i want to do is to make a database of all of them since they're easily more than a thousand and i want it on my PC. I want to be able to have a title, description, tags, screenshots, overall category, target platform info, links to the setup/archive files, the versions i have, extras like wallpapers, ringtones, music or even perhaps any box pictures or ads if they are available (some sites like Zoom Platform do provide those with the games you buy), reviews, patches (official and unofficial), links to folders with any mods i might have, etc.

This sounds like something that back in the day would be perfect for dBase or Fox Pro, except for the part where i want it to be graphical (remember: i want screenshots, wallpapers, etc). But if those were made with a GUI in mind, i'd expect them to be perfect. So basically, i think Access would be it. But AFAIK Access is now dying, last time i checked the UI it seemed like a massive downgrade compared to what i remember from when i first saw it back in Access 97 days (look, some stuff really work better with nested windows / MDI applications - having a two field form or 5 field table take up the entire available application space when 90% of is empty space makes no sense when you could have a bunch of windows with those things visible at the same time). And it is limited on Windows and TBH it looks like a massive program anyway.

Some alternatives mentioned are too much "programming" and not enough "database-ing" IMO. Ideally i should only need to bother with code to cover for any missing functionality not provided by the GUI but most of the DB and UI design (for the forms, etc) and ideally most simple behavioral stuff should be done from the GUI without using any code.

But i don't think there is anything really like that and the modern computing world feels way too "incompatible" with what i have in mind - e.g. whenever i mention this to some friends of mine they start thinking in terms of wiring together stuff like SQLite (or even worse, PostgreSQL), Python/PHP/whatever, some web-based framework, etc and other "mass-of-unrelated-software-held-together-by-duct-tape" solutions, when what i really want is a completely self contained program with no external dependencies (aside from the basic stuff for showing a GUI, etc, i mean not requiring stuff like setting up a PostgreSQL DB), no servers, etc, just a binary/EXE, saving the DB somewhere on the filesystem (ideally in a single file like Access so it is easy to copy/backup/pass around), being able to interact with the rest of the OS (remember that bit about keeping track of setup programs / archives /etc ? I'd like being able to run those directly from the DB GUI), etc.

Well, one of the 28378423 things i want to work on at some point in the future. Hopefully those life extension studies that are posted on HN now and then will eventually move on from rats :-P

[dijit27]

I'd be curious to see with other options exist, but the one that I know is Filemaker Pro. I'm only familiar with the stand alone version, and while expensive, to me it sounds exactly like what you're talking about wanting.

[badsectoracula]

I've never used it (and the fact that you need to fill a form to download a demo means that chances are i'll never use it :-P) but judging from the Wikipedia page it looks like it might have been close at some point but somewhere around late 90s/early 2000s it succumbed to the need to excuse its pricepoint and got too overbloated and enterprise-y (i mean, apparently even in 1997 it would act as an FTP server...? :-P).

What i have in mind is more like something between dBase and VB (VB3 at most), but with a fully integrated database that can understand graphics (ie. in addition to data types like text, number, etc it also has graphics), a more GUI driven workflow for basic stuff (e.g. instead of placing a button in a form and doubleclicking it to enter in a code editor where i type something like "form2.show" to show a second form, instead i have a dialog appear that provides some common tasks like "show a dialog, add/revert/delete/etc record, open external file, etc" with "runs script" being an option for when others wont do), being able to either infer table structure from form fields or automatically create forms from tables, etc.

Also completely self contained, no need to install separate "database drivers", or run any sort of server (even locally), just unzip some archive somewhere and run the program from there.