Re: Performance of ODBC vs. other access methods

If it takes a lot of CPU to support, then why am I provided with simple 
access to >such data >>structures on my PC via several languages: Python, 
Ruby, Java, C++, >C#, etc? (even though they all call them different names)

because the PC and Unix platforms that run those languages have the
CPU power to run them. The as400 is the only hardware platform that is
deliberately unpowered and is the only one that does not use the
languages everyone else uses.

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Are you sure? 
http://www.iseriespython.com/ for one, and there are people working on porting 
others languages, such as PHP ( http://www.zend.com/products/zend_core they are 
working directly *with* IBM to port this to their 'underpowered' i5OS ), as 
well. 

IBM themselves seem to be under the illusion that both Java and C++ are, and 
long have been, available for i5OS. 

As far as I can tell, the only languages I listed that aren't available on the 
iSeries are C# and Ruby. The former is very .net centric, so no surprise, and 
the latter is still obscure enough no-one's bothered to port it yet.