RE: Question Re: Piping and Redirection

[qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Tom Liotta)]

James:
(inline)

midrange-l-request@midrange.com wrote:

>   5. RE: Question Re: Piping and Redirection (James Rich)
>
>Think about it:  designing programs to have knowlege about the data they
>are reading actually limits their flexibility.  It can also decrease their
>applicability to specific situations.

This is an easy point of agreement. In general, programs that access database 
files on AS/400s work only on the files that they're compiled over.

>So most unix commands are kept general on purpose so that they can be
>flexible.  This is where I feel IBM has messed up.  Apparently you can't
>use the general unix commands on database files.  This goes against the
>design of the commands.

However, I don't think this follows. A major aspect is the encapsulation 
provided by the object-based environment. Unless the commands can use the 
proper methods, they should not be allowed to breach the encapsulation.

AFAIK, as long as you're working with appropriate objects (i.e., streamfiles, 
be they text documents, image files or whatever), the commands pretty much work 
today under OS/400 just as they would anywhere else. Just because other systems 
have no inherent way to protect a compiled object's data from these commands 
surely shouldn't be interpreted as being a flaw under OS/400.

I'd tend more to think that the original design of the commands was flawed in 
the sense of being outdated and should now be updated to account for a more 
modern object-orientation.

Tom Liotta

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Tom Liotta
The PowerTech Group, Inc.
19426 68th Avenue South
Kent, WA 98032
Phone  253-872-7788 x313
Fax    253-872-7904
http://www.powertechgroup.com


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