Re: Reminder, blatant ad

Jan Hidders wrote:

> dawn wrote:
> > mich..._at_preece.net wrote:
> >
> >>You can do what you like with Pick. [...] All you have to do to
> >>achieve data independence in this scenario is call a subroutine to
> >>obtain REC rather than READ it directly. [...] The more
> >>sophisticated development environments have parameterised options for
> >>controlling this data abstraction - so that the developer need not
> >>change any program code at all in changing the database design. [...]
> >>
> >>On the subject of the distinction between the physical and the logical
> >>:- I reiterate that the clear demarkation that exists in the SQL world,
> >>where the SQL engine clearly seperates one from the other, is absent in
> >>Pick. Pick is entirely logical.
> >
> > If Mike is right about this, that might explain my confusion, eh? My
> > thinking when I read Codd was that PICK did not have data independence
> > and that it didn't matter one lick.
>
> It's not always equally important. But you should also keep in mind that
> your observation might be only valid because you felt you got the job
> done, (so there is no problem, right?) where actually a DBMS that gave
> you real data independence might have helped you getting more done.
> Unless you fully understand what it is and what it can do for you that
> is hard to tell.
>
> What I find interesting in Mike's response is that he does acknowledge
> that is can sometimes be important and that "more sophisticated dev.
> environments" offer something that goes in the right direction. So there
> is apparently some appreciation of its importance in the MV world. :-)
> Pity about the remark about wrapping in subroutines that show that
> actually he doesn't understand what we are talking about here.
>
> -- Jan Hidders

I'm quite sure we've come at this from different directions. I don't know what path you took to get to this meeting point, but that's not really the issue is it? The fact is we're both talking about data independence. How you achieve it is up to you. I just explained one way it can be achieved in Pick. If calling a subroutine instead of doing a direct read is too much of an application-code thing for you - and you'd like the data-abstraction to be more a function of the DBMS itself then you might like to look at things like jEDI from jBase. Note that jBase is "not Pick".

Mike. Received on Fri Feb 17 2006 - 02:31:03 CET