Re: Wrongly using embedded SQL

<snip>
IMHO The answer is, as always, it depends. A couple of
years ago a Rochester DB2 expert told me that the
performance threshold between "RPG-Native" and SQL was
about 100 records (<100 records, RPG was faster).

That said there are, of course, many additional factors,
depending on your business needs and requirements (or your
customer's). For example, if the query is very complex I
like to wrap it on a view.
</snip>

As usual, I think we are focusing on performance issues where the big
issue from my perspective is Database Independence and the costs
associated not using it. If you are using SQL properly, then you are
only bringing in what you need to the program and the logical view of
the database is different from the physical view. Using files means
reading in the entire table. Want to make a change to the tables.
Recompile the whole world.

Using tables also means using program logic to select records instead of
database logic. Read a record, check a value, read another, check value
and check another value, etc, etc instead of just writing an SQL that
gets you what you want.

As I have stated before, always use SQL unless you have a very good
reason not to. (Un-Normalized tables, performance just to slow, etc).

I think the Wiki article would be a good idea if it summarized all
reason for using SQL and the negatives you would have.