Re: DDS Support

["M. Lazarus" <mlazarus@xxxxxxxx>]

James,

At 6/29/00 01:17 AM -0700, you wrote:
> >  My point is that just because it
> exists on "all" platforms doesn't
> > mean that we should be forced to switch to it.  Where is the
> ROI?
>
> The ROI is in the expanded availability of talent.  Now, as a
> business
> owner, the capitalist pig that I can be, if I can gain in available
> talent pool, I've gained.  The following may make some people
> uncomfortable, but AS/400 talent is a niche skill.

>Now SQL skill may be foreign to the AS/400 community, but it is
common knowledge in the
> industry as a whole.  Therefore the
> adoption of SQL for the AS/400
> brings in a larger talent pool, more competition, demand for
> improvement

 SQL on the /400 is not a complete implementation, i.e. I can't
(easily) write a full-fledged system w/ any complexity w/ SQL only. 
On other platforms / DB's you can. I find embedded SQL ugly, w/ very few
advantages over native RPG I/O.  Not to mention the bad habit of the
pre-compiler lagging behind by a release.


> <snip>
> I'm in camp #2, IBM or anybody that places a REFFLD capability in
> SQL
> would have a following and force the remaining SQL providers to
> follow
> suit. Ergo, a new standard.  DDS, in your wildest dreams, will
> -never-
> become a standard.  And if you think that the AS/400, and it's
> particular definition languages, will live forever, ask any person
> with
> S/3x background to give you the timeline of the decline of OCL or
> IDDU
> or WSU or #GSORT.

 Then I assume you're running as fast as possible from RPG and CL
coding!  :-)  RPG is non-standard outside of the IBM
Midrange.
 

> The S/36 outsold the S/38 about 8 to 1, so why
> isn't OCL the AS/400
> command language and IDDU the file definition language or WSU the
> method
> to handle subfiles?  Personally, I liked being able to have //
> IF
> statements condition the #GSORT specifications but I got around it
> by
> writing my own dynamic QRYSLT string builder.

1)  WSU was dead to new development *long* before the AS/400 arrived
on the scene.
2)  IDDU was too little, too late and never really took off, since
it wasn't fully supported across the development tools.
3)  #GSORT is now called FMTDTA.
4)  OCL is still supported under the 36EE (and "sort of"
under the M36).  IDDU and of course #GSORT are also supported.

 With very few exceptions, CL is far more powerful than OCL.  I
don't see that major advancement w/ SQL.  I *do* see some major
things missing or very difficult to do in SQL.

> What happens when new data types are
> indroduced? Like "currancy" where
> you can qualify it as US$, CN$, yen, sorry I don't have a euro symbol
> on
> my keyboard.  How about a data type for quantity? So you can
> specify
> pounds, tons, metric tons, stones, kilograms as a "format" just
> as we
> specify dates as *ISO or *USA?  Let's not forget time duration,
> where
> 7:30 is 7 hours and 30 minutes and 7.50 is 7 and one half
> hours.

 As I mentioned in another post, this is a DB issue, not an SQL vs.
DDS issue.

 -mark