Re: Wishing trolls away

"Paul" <paul_at_test.com> wrote in message news:BGlpc.3459$wI4.383483_at_wards.force9.net...
> Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
> > I'd suggest downloading a commercial freebie and playing with it. Go to
> > www.u2ug.org and look for the links to the IBM download pages. The
> > denizens of comp.databases.pick are friendly if you need any help.
>
> OK I'm looking at: http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/u2/
> What's the essential difference between UniData and UniVerse?
> It's not quite clear to me from the specs.

The history and stories to be told. One difference is that UniVerse actually paid Dick Pick some royalties (after losing in court) while UniData not (they won in court). Another is that UniData has a bit more connection to the OS, which has pros and cons, but still runs in a p-machine, while UniVerse is completely contained in (not sure that is technical accurate) the p-machine (Wirth's P-machine is the parent). An IBM person who knows both might tell you this was BS, but it is not intentionally such.

UniVerse also bought out "French" -- the French version of the query language and due to this acquisition might even have some code converted from the original pick systems, with an "environment variable" that can be set to choose among flavors of pick and pick-alikes.

I know UniData better, but there are more UniVerse customers than UniData. So, I'd suggest starting with UniVerse (way too long an answer, right?)

> I see they are both touted as "extended relational databases", that's
> guaranteed to annoy some on this list! :)

Yes, and I don't think we can completely blame IBM for that since they got it from Informix who got it from Ardent where it came from VMark and UniData -- that "extended relational" designation has likely been there a long time. It is marketing lingo. It woud be much more accurate to advertise these as "Functional Databases" ;-)

> > And yes there are various free(ish) Pick-style systems. I hesitate to
> > point you at them if you plan to do any performance comparisons, because
> > they're young, not yet version 1, and not yet really up to strength.
>
> OK, I'll have a look at Maverick as well.

If I were a gambling man, I'd say that you would not be impressed at first glance. I definitely wasn't until I realized that developers in that environment were so much more productive than those in others that I had seen. Good luck! --dawn Received on Sat May 15 2004 - 17:31:36 CEST