RE: SQL Syntax

And by the way, John, despite how it may have sounded, I'm really not saying
that your particular implementation for your users is wrong.  You and your
users seem to have come to a reasonable, rational agreement as to how to
access your data, and in the long run, that's the most important thing.  The
fact that your users embrace the iSeries data is indeed a compelling
argument.

I just don't think it's right for everyone, and I feel strongly that there
are so many dangers in this type of access that they may potentially
outweigh the short-term benefits.

If users and developers started out with the concept that the information
and the database were separate entities, then the users would never know nor
care about the physical storage of the data.  And think of the benefits!
You could add calculated fields to the data definitions whenever you needed
them!  Access could be granted or denied at the row level, or based on even
more complex rules!  You could even allow updates to your database, because
they'd go through a screening process!  Users could begin to develop their
own applications, without fear of damaging the database!  Multiple database
could be handled transparently!  Databases could be moved to different
machines, and you could even have simultaneous redundant failover without
the user even knowing it!

Ah, pardon me.  I just see so many benefits to database encapsulation that
the trend towards raw data access really saddens me, because I know, deep in
my core, that long term it's a real liability.

Joe