Re: Informix <==> WWW

> Oh well, I must have stopped at the first release of GSQL...which was not 
> flexible enough for me, because you had to reformulate your queries in 
> some unnatural way to fit them in the scripts that would format the HTML
> page with your results...it was *technically* inflexible.
Yes, you have to coerce your SQL into the GSQL forms language, but once you've
picked up how to do it (FI joins are not done intuitively) it becomes easy to
develop powerful form apps.
 
>  My solution, at the time, was to write a distributed application where
> the interfaces to the database(s) were encapsulated in specialized agents (so 
> you could have a Sybase specialist, an Oracle specialist etc.) and then 
> you would define queries and HTML templates separately, so they wouldn't
> mess with each other. Sort of an extended GSQL...
Cool, I think we all have a good idea about what we want/need in a Web-Forms
application. I've gotten several ideas from this newsgroup for my dream app,
I hope Oracle (and all the other DBs) continues to listen.

>  Anyway. I agree that sticking to one proprietary solution is not a great idea
> (although I've been working with WOW and the cgi is so simple that you
> can really rewrite it if you don't like it... ;-> ). Also, I'm not endorsing
> Oracle in any way (quite the opposite, actually). And yes, I already
> congratulated the WOW authors for their work..;-)
Its hard to go wrong with an Oracle-proprietary solution, because its 
impossible
to run out of Oracle-proprietary business. However, there is a lot opportunity
to create Web-form solutions for all those other commercial databases and for
the truly brave, freeware databases. As developers, this is a decision that
shouldnt be taken lightly. 

> So again, what about the Informix management and their solution?! (I
> don't use Informix and I'm not familiar with their tools).
I dont mention them because they're on the verge of no longer being taken
seriously :). Which commercial vendors are working on a web interfaces? I
think I heard about IBM DB2 and also Sybase, but I'm not near any of those
weekly trade rags to confirm. Anyone have URLs?

John
groenvel@cse.psu.edu

Received on Wednesday, 28 June 1995 17:12:57 UTC