Gavin writes:

>I fail to see that this method of access to Image would have any
>fundamental difference in performance than any other client/server
>communication link.  It's just a trick to allow access to the
>Image API through a file-based API.  The performance is entirely
>a function of how you implement it, not the fundamental concept.

The problem with this scheme is the same as the problem with Query:
abuse. This encourages serial access, and having people copy large data
sets to their PC, or opening the data set with Word and using the Find
command to locate records.

However, that's a management problem rather than a technical problem.
It's much easier to avoid using an available feature than to avail
yourself of an unimplemented feature. I think the database-as-directory
idea is kind of cute. (I had thought of implementing it myself, but then
remembered how much I'd get paid for doing it :-). My freeware-writing
time allotment has all gone on education software for the last few
months.)

-- Bruce

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