RE: Killing of SQL users (and useful link to SQL Syntax Guide)

Ah, Users; Why do we need them anyway? Oh yeah, without them there is no
need for us.

There are a lot of tools in the PC environment for presenting the data in
"user friendly" ways. We currently utilize Excel and Access for the
presentation of the data while the data itself stays on the AS/400. Our
S/30 can currently outperform any of the PC's in the building; not sure how
long that will last though. The millions of rows of data that need to be
processed just would not fit on their 2 gb harddrives along with MS/Office.
The Accounting Analysts and Sales Analysts enjoy working with tools that
are more to their liking than AS/400 Query. At the security level which our
users are accessing the AS/400 through TCP/IP we can limit them to specific
file and library combinations. It is also easy to develop specific MS/Query
functions and deliver them to the users so we are not giving them open
access to all of our data. Chris Peters also has a seminar on Visual Basic
and the AS/400 where he demonstrates how easy it is to create a
client/server application to deliver controlled data through an RPG program
running on the AS/400. 

Setting the DSN to Read only is a good thing to do but under Windows 98
users can change or create new ODBC connections on the fly. Our users have
READ ONLY access to the data libraries for BPCS so that the AS/400 security
restricts them from putting data into BPCS files. They adopt the SSA group
authority from the main Menu program only while in the BPCS environment. 

The new challenges are to pick the right tools for the job and to try to
stay 1 step ahead of the users. The simple days of limited choices on the
AS/400 are long gone.

Thanks for the link to the SQL document.
Regards,

Jon Le Roi
Dey, L.P.
(707) 224-3200 ext 2880

At 04:12 PM 7/20/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Many of them suffer natural and immediate heart-attack deaths as a result of
>their careless update queries. A Darwinian example of natural selection in
>the IT world.
>
>A good place for AUTHORIZED users of SQL to look up SQL syntax for the
>AS/400 is:
>http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/pubs/html/as400/v4r4/ic2924/info/db2/rbafzmst0
>2.htm#ToC
>
>A safer way to let end users who like SQL to create queries is to give them
>MSAccess, and setup their ODBC DSN to read-only mode. Another advantage to
>using MSAccess over command line SQL is the easy portability of the SQL
>results table into spreadsheets and other wonderful end-user toys.
>
>George Sagen
>BPCS Application Consultant
>gsagen@primesourcetech.com <mailto:gsagen@primesourcetech.com>
>http://www.primesourcetech.com 
>
>PrimeSource Technologies, L.L.C.
>7373 East Doubletree Ranch Road
>Suite 150
>Scottsdale, AZ 85258
>(801)360-6360 Direct & VM 
>
>
>.  -----Original Message-----
>.  From: uucp@Uucp1.mcs.net [mailto:uucp@Uucp1.mcs.net]On Behalf Of
>.  mgross@gbc.com
>.  Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 1999 2:10 PM
>.  To: BPCS-L@midrange.com
>.  Subject: Re[2]: Performance & SQL coding


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