Re: Can I use DDS to create an SQL table name

On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 5:56 PM, Vernon Hamberg
<vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I guess I don't see the push to "native I/O is dead" - although IBM do seem
to be pushing it hard. For me, this becomes a choice - going with only one
approach isn't where I'm at, for now anyway.

I really don't know IBM's strategy. I've heard a few folks say IBM
doesn't have a coherent strategy. But I haven't personally felt that
IBM was pushing particularly hard against native I/O.

I hear you [Matt] on the look of things - it seems better now in the
freer format, to some extent. I'm also quite excited at the prospect
of embedding an entire stored procedure in RPG - then most of the
SQL code is really clean - only one /exec sql - and SQL code
makes things pretty easy, compared to what we are used to with,
as you say, so many /EXEC SQL bits.

I actually read Matt's comments as more that the very idea of mixing
SQL with RPG was ugly. Sure, it's even uglier when you have to have
way, way too many "/exec sql" lines, but even without *any* extraneous
lines (assuming a really fancy parser that doesn't need to be told
which lines are SQL), it might feel kind of dirty to folks who like to
think in SQL and program as much as possible in SQL.

And if I've misread Matt, I'm confident that there are others out
there who feel the way I describe above.

I think you and I are not that far apart on the spectrum - slightly
different choices and preferences - seems it's all good. And maybe as the
immortal Tevye would say - "You're both right!"

I certainly won't go on record disagreeing with Tevye!

But my take on embedded SQL is that it's a net win. I'll admit that
my SQL skills are pretty weak. But I do like SQL. I love the ability
to mix SQL with procedural code, because at some point, trying to do
certain things in SQL gets complicated enough that even the experts
have trouble writing it, and what they do manage to come up with is,
at least to those with merely ordinary SQL skills, a big pile of
*declarative* spaghetti.

Oracle has PL/SQL, Microsoft has Transact-SQL; ODBC and JDBC
connections typically involve embedding SQL in procedural code. I
think it's only natural to provide this ability to mix styles, and I
don't think it's solely a crutch for programmers who can't or won't
think purely in SQL.

John Y.