kbmMemTable review

Some time ago, Kbm developer wrote "Invalid publication of licensed materials!" we decided to respond in kind.

Website overview:
- Components4Developers, well, if you look at their site, it uses frames, strange fonts (Arial Narrow?) i thought website design should be modern. I wish it looked more better.

- Some of their partners Jasmine Components (dead), StarMax (dead), Heidi.ie (is not active?) may not even use Components4Developers anymore :)

- Either it's just me or CodeGear's logo is distorted? In the age of modern website design, it's just plain unprofessional.

- Media page is not available (coming soon) since three years ago (make that four years since 2005).

- Case study for Apollo is sooo big I can't see it. no really, the thing flickers and Firefox hides it.

back to the review.


kbmMemTable 6.10 - is it really necessary?
Many years ago, from Delphi 4/5/6/7 times, kbmMemTable was a must-have component during those days. Mr Kim made it for free and the former website was linked to his optical scanning business website. Later, kbmMemTable was getting more better and better.


The wannabe database
I really wish kbmMemTable would start to grow up, like other in-memory tables, like the one found in RemObject's remoting datasets, or for ease of use, like in DevExpress memory dataset (it comes with DevExpress and good with filters), or DBISAM's in-memory table (you can save and load to in-memory DBISAM) or Nexus in-memory database.

For starters, if you try to, say, store 10000 records in-memory (fair enough, for a report), what about the "other" 100,000 records? then you need a database library, such as DBISAM/ELEVATEDB/NEXUSDB. Then wait! they have their own in-memory tables. It simply does not make sense to use kbmMemTable and say, use ElevateDB or Nexus in-memory tables.

Ditto for MySQL/ MSSQL/ Oracle access. If you get UniDac/ or AnyDac or RemObjects, they come with their own in-memory table component.

Of course, you could use kbmMemTable, but with a choice, you could go "native" and delete kbmMemTable...

DelphiHater remembers the time when Mr. Kim was advertising his kbmMemTable in the DevExpress dxmemtable newsgroups and asked "to stop promoting competing products" :)

Also, the time when AidAim.com released their shareware in-memory table (without sources) and there were long fingers pointing about "copied" code, but any proof? I don't know except that most of kbmMemTable sources were for looking and, and copying ideas from.

Anyone remembers the WideString fiasco which needed a "paid" upgrade to fix? or how the primary key would go haywire after some time.

The heart of kbmMemTable is custom TList. The paid extensions are simply faster variant of TList instead of Delphi's usual TList. (not worth the price, IMHO).

To top it off, the paid help file and annual subscription.


The wannabe Remoting table
The most interesting thing is kbmMemTable does not have linkes to SOAP/WSDL or RPC/XML or ADO in-memory table links.


Verdict
In the end, your reviewer, who brought kbmMemTable subscriptions and dropped it, still wonders what value kbmMemTable have, against - other bundled in-memory suites.

It's a nice to have, but if you want to buy it, along with Delphi, RemObjects (contains an in-memory table), DevExpress (contains an in-memory table), ElevateSoft/Nexus (contains in-memory tables as well), then UniDac (contains in-memory table)...


Non-Standard Future
DelphiHater wonders what future is there left for a stand-alone in-memory table.

there are two directions, develop a database connectivity kit (the type that works) or develop a remoting framework...

DelphiHater uses SOAP/XML, ActiveMQ, XML/RPC remoting, Spring, Hibernate because it talks with open standards, not some binary non-standard protocol.

The world is full of open standards - XML, SOAP, ActiveMQ, SOAP, Ajax, Amazon Web Services, Google Web Services, RSS... and unfortunately, kbmMemTable can't talk with them without much effort and coding.

Last:
How to prevent software piracy


Article update in March 2013:
This article is outdated. The outdated information is striked out. The website Component4Developers now goes to Component4Programmers. They have since updated their kbmMemTable with SQL support, OSX and 64-bits and fixed tons of bugs that plagued their product since then.

Article referencing kbmMW is also at Rudolph's Dental Software AG.

See article corrections.

DelphiHaters' Blog wishes Mr. Kim Madsen best of luck with his product.