As John says, there are massive advantages to moving to SQL as you are
guided towards a cursor-less approach, but that really requires you to
re-engineer your applications and the way they approach the data. Other
recommendations from my SQL experts are to avoid using embedded SQL and
always use stored procedures.
A lot of legacy applications have grown up using a cursor based
approach; read a record from a database, process it, update it, move
onto the next record. I've looked at what we would have to do to move
our applications onto a RDBMs - and it would quadruple (at least) the
amount of work we would need to spend on each application to migrate it
properly.
You can use cursors in SQL - and some 3rd party products have a proven
track record of translating image calls onto SQL calls on the target
database - but you would have to seriously consider the overhead of such
an approach.
-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of John Hohn
Sent: 02 March 2006 17:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] Migration recommendations; PRELIMINARY INQUIRY
Charles,
My recent experience in migrating two applications (now working on a
third) to an RDBMS environment (not Eloquence) leads me to agree
wholeheartedly with your statements. I liken it to the y2k quandary of
whether to "window" 6 character dates or just bite the bullet and expand
the date field to 8 characters. As long as you're in there
re-engineering, do it right the first time; the downstream payoff (some
known now; most to be realized as the industry continues to evolve) are
enormous.
I think people are afraid of writing SQL, but it's not that hard once
you get used to it.
There are many advantages to SQL; one that we found is, by re- writing
our complicated reports to not use cursors (doing intermediate
summations with unions instead of programmatic adding up of numbers
inside cursor loops) we can complete reports in seconds (yes, seconds!!)
that used to take 20-30 minutes on the HP3K.
But the real reason to go with SQL, as you stated, are the tools; which
will get better and better and remain cheap or free.
- John Hohn
Comp Three
Date sent: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 09:25:19 -0800
Send reply to: Charles Finley <[log in to unmask]>
From: Charles Finley <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] Migration recommendations;
PRELIMINARY INQUIRY
To: [log in to unmask]
> Ok, I'll risk getting flamed.
>
> Connie Sellitto Wrote:
>
> "...... this migration is not driven strictly by HP's discontinuance
> of the 3000 line. Our goal is not simply to continue to run existing
> applications on a supported platform, but to enable easier development
> of web applications with standard tools, give our in-house users a GUI
> interface which can be customized to meet their needs, and allow
> (read) access to our extended customer base via the Internet.
>
> Our Board's philosophy regarding data entry, processing and storage
> has shifted from a 'mainframe' mentality to a server-based system,
> using non-proprietary DB's and tools. IMO, they are listening to PC
> and Mac users who claim "I can do all this in 5 minutes on my PC - why
> can't CFA give me the same info via the web?""
>
> Fortunately, today this is an achievable goal. A lot of companies are
> not satisfied with the options provided on the HP 3000 development
environment.
> However, as we can see from other opinions on this list, some people
are.
>
> Migration to Linux, Unix and Windows with the tools available today
> can give you the opportunity to not only have comparable capabliity to
> what you have today but to extend development options available to
> you. However, not all migration choices lead to expanded options.
> For example, since so many people on this list recommend using
> Eloquence, migrating to Eloquence limits you mostly to use of the
> TurboIMAGE API (there was some talk about ODBC as well). That does
> not mean that Eloquence is bad or that you should not use it. It
> means that once you migrate your database to Eloquence, your choice
> for how to get at your data are more limited than they are if you
migrate to an RDBMS. There are similar limitations in other choices of
tools.
>
> Charles Finley
> 619-795-0720
>
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