Reviewing Wirt's post of 24 April that gave the ranking of
the IPROF SIGIMAGE ballot reminded me of one more
enhancement that I was going to propose to add to the
"new items" list;  ran out of time at the end of the meeting
(mea culpa, as the IPROF master scheduler).
 
Anyway, this is obviously not a top priority item....  And I
know it has been this way forever.....  But I say it has been
*wrong* forever:
 
If you are in DBUTIL, and are the properly authorized
CREATOR of an Image/SQL database, and are in the
same GROUP as the target database, then you can
just say    PURGE  or  ERASE  <database_name>.
And you data is toast.
 
Now perhaps there are those of you who work in a quiet,
unhurried academic environment where you carefully
double check and keep perfect track of where you are in
the system at all times.   But for those of us who's goal
must many times be to get through the week without
falling further behind;  who usually have a terminal
session plus 2 or 3 VT sessions going at the same time
(some in production, and some in the test account);  it
is easier than I would like to get mentally cross-connected
and ALT-TAB into the production DBUTIL VT session
instead of the test account.
 
Even with the MPE prompt set to be <group>.<account>,
some of us dunderheads might still momentarily drop a
neuron connection and forget where we are....  And with
a DBUTIL SHOW <database_name> ALL now scrolling
over several screen pages, that prompt doesn't show
anyway.
 
SUMMARY:  With test being just a copy of production,
database names are the same.  So if you are in DBUTIL
and mentally disconnect somehow,  PURGE  or  ERASE
in the wrong place could ruin your whole day.  I.e.:  If there
was ever a place where there should be a confirmation
before wiping something out, this is it.  Therefore:
 
DBUTIL enhancement request for the SIGIMAGE list
(didn't do SR yet;  will when I get a round-tuit):
 
For destructive commands in DBUTIL, the dialog should
go something like this:
========================================
>>PURGE  MYDB
     Sure you want to PURGE  MYDB.group.account  ??
     Confirm (NO/YES) >>YES
>>
========================================
And I do mean a three-letter "YES" is required to PURGE.
 
Now for the job streams that have been built up over the
last 20 years that expect PURGE MYDB not to require a
confirmation, obviously backward compatibility must be
maintained.  Only answer I can think of is another flag in
DBUTIL............  Groan....   Yeah, I know:  Endless flags in
DBUTIL.  But as someone who will admit having sensed
I'm capable of a major screw-up in this area, I still say
PURGE MYDB deserves a confirmation more than just
about any other action in MPE.  And we don't do this
100 times every day;  a few more characters won't hurt.
 
Yea verily, I feel better now, having confessed to being
capable of the unthinkable database management blunder.
We've got DDS backups that we VSTORE on a second
drive, but I still hate to have to bet the ranch on them......
 
Ken Sletten