Re: RE: Can you do this in SQL

["R. Bruce Hoffman, Jr." <rbruceh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Pluta" <joepluta@PlutaBrothers.com>
To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 10:23 AM
Subject: RE: RE: Can you do this in SQL


> You're opinion about new people finding SQL easy to use is just that, by
the
> way, and isn't supported by the facts.  Check the forums and see how many
> questions people ask about how to get SQL to work as opposed to how many
> questions are asked about logical files or even OPNQRYF over the years.
> You'll find that for many people, SQL is confusing and difficult to
> understand, the rules seemingly arbitrary, the syntax obscure.  Once you
get
> past a simple SELECT or UPDATE, and have to start dealing with subselects
> and outer joins, many people get lost.  Far more people than get lost
> chaining to a logical file.

Realizing that you will only see this as one more invalid opinion, I must
disagree with this statement.

I taught OPNQRYF since release 8 of the 38 and found that there was
significantly more confusion about things like counting quotes on variable
insertions into the select and mapping to a file format for joins, than I
ever get about left, right, inner or exception joins in SQL.

Second, AS/400 people have been using OPNQRYF for a lot longer than most of
them have been using SQL, which is why you see more questions about SQL now
than OPNQRYF. Not because OPNQRYF is easier to understand.

As for people getting lost in the statements, I have found more people get
lost in nested DOW, DOU loops than in SQL statements.

But hey, it's just my opinion, which you can easily ignore.


===========================================================
R. Bruce Hoffman, Jr.
 -- IBM Certified Specialist - iSeries Administrator
 -- IBM Certified Specialist - RPG IV Developer

"Suppose you were an idiot...
  And suppose you were a member of Congress...
  But I repeat myself."
    - Mark Twain