Temporal support in DB2 for i - a perspective

I was looking at some requirements today on the CAAC site (not public, sorry, due to NDA issues).

There was a requirement asking for temporal support to be added, dated last June, that we brought over from COMMON, #347.

And now we have it - which is very cool!

So I want to suggest a perspective to this - maybe everyone gets this, and maybe not.

1. At the time the requirement showed up on COMMON, we brought it over to CAAC - we knew that temporal support had been planned for some time and took the opportunity to join the fray and be able to report something delivered by IBM.

2. I mentioned "planned for some time" - on a personal front, I attended meetings with IBM when working for and ISV, and temporal support was brought up __at least 4 years__ ago.

So a perspective - IBM are delivering things in what looks faster and more responsive to industry changes - some of these have been planned for some time, others are done more quickly - see the OPS open source offering now. The teams are finding ways to be more responsive to our rapidly-changing world.

So to add, I suggest we remember that new features and capabilities don't just pop out of thin air - they've been on the table sometimes for several years. A thing like temporal support required underlying support to change, as I recall, so when it can be delivered depends on other parts of the platform. It could not be done with a technology refresh, had to be a major release change. And there is always the issue of resources available to do the work.

Let us keep a broader view of what IBM announces - I guess that's the bottom line I've come to, both from being inside the walls for a year in 2001, testing the new query engine, and having the privilege to serve on a couple councils and hearing something about the decision process involved.

Thoughts?
Vern