Re: DDS Support (Re: NT web server access to AS400) -- MIDRANGE-L


-----Original Message-----
From: Al Barsa, Jr. <barsa2@ibm.net>
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
Date: Monday, June 26, 2000 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: DDS Support (Re: NT web server access to AS400)


>At 04:03 PM 06/26/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>> > Clearly DDS is no longer strategic to IBM.  They want everybody to go
with
>> > SQL for file definition, which IMHO is brain dead.
>>
>>Do you refer to SQL or the strategic direction as being brain dead?
>
>
>As DDS provides higher programmer productivity, no longer enhancing DDS is
>brain dead.  SQL is not brain dead, and admittedly it's portable, but it's
>not as productive (for database implementation) as DDS.
>

Whoa...  you wanna race?

Granted.  If I have to define a physical file with 10 fields and an index, I
can surely do this in DDS in minutes.  I can do the same thing in SQL in
minutes.  The difference?  Maybe seconds.

BUT... there aren't any REAL tools for manipulating the DDS sources.  I can
take ERWin, and in moments, change the database and generate the SQL script
to change the database from the old and the new models (and I mean Database,
not just one file, but maybe dozens) then run the SQL script thru OpsNav or
send it to the 400 with FTP and execute it there.

Reference files?  Can do.  Again ERWin (and others) recognizes SQL domains.
If I want a status field that always contains a Y or an N, then I can do
that in the tool.

And, yes, I know this does not cover display and printer files.

>
>> > SQL does not support all of the features of DDS.  AS/400 databases
contain
>> > many less database design errors than other databases, due to the
>>existence
>> > of the RLDREF keyword.
>>
>>I'm kinda curious how they will equivalence the SrcFile parameter for the
>>ChgPF command utilizing SQL?
>
>My take on this is that the CHGPF SRCFILE function is the equivalent of
>ALTERTABLE using DDS.
>


Yes it is. And note my change scenario above.

The difference is the tool.  IBM obviously had a choice.  To build a totally
unique tool for manipulating one of two interfaces (the DDS) and allowing
modeling, or leverage already existing tools on the market that can
manipulate SQL DDL for databases.

If you were building the database part, would you also want to be developing
the tool?  Both from scratch?

If not which part are you willing to put money into?  Which one of these do
you want to excel at?

IBM chose the database, and I, for one, am glad they are not trying to
re-invent the tool like the ones that I have used for SQL.


===========================================================
R. Bruce Hoffman, Jr.
 -- IBM Certified AS/400 Professional System Administrator
 -- IBM Certified AS/400 Professional Network Administrator
 -- IBM Certified Specialist - AS/400 Administrator
 -- IBM Certified Specialist - RPG IV Developer

"If all you have is RPG, then everything looks like a 400!"


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