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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