RE: SQL vs. traditional I/O?

[Chris Bipes <chris.bipes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob,

I disagree with switching 100% to SQL.  I love native I/O.  But I work for
an end user company and I am not writing any package to sell.  If I worked
for a software house and I wanted them to be able to run my software on
other platforms, I would develop in JAVA and SQL.  I believe in using the
right tool for the job.  If I am writing a batch program to process a group
of records and SQL would make the program simpler, I would use SQL.  For
individual record processing interactively, 5250, cannot be RPG & Native
I/O.

Chris Bipes

-----Original Message-----

Maybe I'm opening a bucket of worms here, but for straight RPG
programming on an AS400/iSeries/i5 machine, why should we use SQL
instead of traditional RPG I/O (read, chain, etc.)?  I have seen
multiple postings on these lists and several articles all saying we need
to switch to SQL now!  But, traditional I/O works great on the platform
it was intended for - the SQL implementations I have seen are 'clunky'
at best.

Note: I understand SQL has its place; web programming, etc.  I just
don't see the need to switch over 100% to SQL.  What am I missing?  Why
should I use an SQL select statement versus a simple chain to a logical
file?