Re: Which of the SYSIBM tables/views show the row count for

Dave Odom wrote:

Well, it seems like I got some, a pitiful few, to think outside the box. But, sadly, most still drink the Rochester kook-aid

Dave:

This made me curious -- "the Rochester kook-aid".

It's seemed to me that 'Rochester' has been pushing customers towards a purer SQL approach for a long time. I'm not at all clear how this could be interpreted as "the Rochester kook-aid" in terms of how you present things here. Are you saying that that's a bad approach?

But beyond that, I asked a question quite a while ago and cannot recall seeing how you responded.

I described how I used SQL Server to create a trivial database and then opened it in NotePad to make changes through "native access". I could've written a C program, but NotePad was just too easy.

Oddly enough, SQL Server did _not_ prevent me from making any changes. You can probably guess the result. Did I misconfigure SQL Server or miss one of its important features?

I then went on to wonder how Oracle might prevent similar "native access" to its tables. I'm currently not in a position to test it. I haven't even touched Oracle for at least 15 years, so I really have no idea how things have progressed. If a mechanism exists for prevention, I'd be interested in knowing about it. Likewise for any other 'real RDBMS' that you can help illuminate.

Please describe the protections that such 'real RDBMSs' provide and how they're superior. I think that's an important point. If they can provide better protection, then we'd all be better off knowing about it.

Tom Liotta