Re: Informix vs. Sybase vs. Oracle vs. (gasp) MS SQL Server

Gary L. Burnore wrote:

> You didn't answer the question Anthony. How can you tell exactly how a
> program operates on a database without reading the source?
>
> EXACTLY - OPERATES ON DATABASE - ANSWER
        I was saving this response for someone but never mind, you'll do.

	So you honestly want me to believe that you're unfamiliar with
	the practice and methodology of reverse engineering? Where you
	aren't allowed (or cannot possibly, because it isn't publically
	available) to just look at source code and duplicate a product
	to the same specification. So, then, what were Compaq really doing
	when they claimed to have reverse engineered IBM's ROM BIOS
	all those years ago? You should be away that if they were making
	exact duplicates IBM wouldn't have wasted any time unleashing
	their lawyers. The same would apply to Cyrix and AMD reverse
	engineering INTEL's CPUs. Cyrix and AMD wouldn't have had
	access to INTEL's production masks, so how did they do it?

	Now to answer your specific question - haven't you heard of
	products like SQL Sniffer that you can use to monitor a
	program's interaction with a database server. Of course,
	you don't need to get that sophisticated. I'd imagine that
	more than just one server that I know of would allow you
	to record this information as well. You should be able
	to monitor the log data as well and examine changes applied
	to the data. So, why exactly do you seem to think that
	its impossible?

> To answer your question, irrelevant as it is, yes, I do. I've got a Platnum
> Premier card from United to prove some of my travels and 22K miles on my
> year-old motorcycle to prove some of my travels. What does that have to do
> with databases? Wait, don't answer that. I already asked you a toughie.
> You'll need to put all of your energy into answering that one.

        I don't have to. You misinterpreted what I said.

-am Received on Fri Dec 05 1997 - 00:00:00 CET