kimcm@ambush.UUCP (Kim Chr. Madsen) (03/15/88)
In article <7458@ncoast.UUCP> allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes: >I have only one question about Oracle. Can't they come up with a better >report writer than RPT/RPF? I've been writing reports by doing the queries >in SQL*Plus and piping the output through sed to *Unify* RPT! I don't know much about Oracle or their report generator, I however have tried other RDBMS System's report-generators and found them all insufficient for dealing with complex reports in an straight forward manner the RG's are simply too inflexible. Luckily I was running on a fully equipped UNIX System and found comfort in using AWK as a report generator. Actually I have grown into the belief that AWK might be the best tool for making reports due to its flexibility and brute force in programming aspects. In article <880@ncrwic.Wichita.NCR.COM> dgrimmer@ncrwic.Wichita.NCR.COM (Dave Grimmer) writes: >It seems as if many of the components of ORACLE are not well integrated. >The product could benefit greatly with a comprehensive data dictionary. >PROGRESS Forever :-) I fail to see why so many people seems to think that integrated products are so beautiful! The problem with integrated problems as I see it is that it puts unnecessary constraints on the user. The user of a system should be free to choose which tools he wants to use for a certain task. For example it makes me mad if I by using a database system are forced to use the systems report generator and are not free to choose my own -- the one I'm familiar with or the one I think does the job best. Likewise I would like the database to be accessable by other tools than just the database-system itself! Best Regards Kim Chr. Madsen.
sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) (03/22/88)
in article <611@ambush.UUCP>, kimcm@ambush.UUCP (Kim Chr. Madsen) says: > > In article <7458@ncoast.UUCP> allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes: >>I have only one question about Oracle. Can't they come up with a better >>report writer than RPT/RPF? I've been writing reports by doing the queries >>in SQL*Plus and piping the output through sed to *Unify* RPT! RPT/RPF is admittedly a bear to use. However, it is relatively flexible and seems to be able to produce all but the most complex report layouts. Students hate it because it's like learning another programming language, but I wonder how well it works in industry ... > > In article <880@ncrwic.Wichita.NCR.COM> dgrimmer@ncrwic.Wichita.NCR.COM (Dave Grimmer) writes: >>It seems as if many of the components of ORACLE are not well integrated. >>The product could benefit greatly with a comprehensive data dictionary. >>PROGRESS Forever :-) > > I fail to see why so many people seems to think that integrated > products are so beautiful! The problem with integrated problems as I > see it is that it puts unnecessary constraints on the user. The user > of a system should be free to choose which tools he wants to use for a > certain task. For example it makes me mad if I by using a database > system are forced to use the systems report generator and are not free > to choose my own -- the one I'm familiar with or the one I think does > the job best. Likewise I would like the database to be accessable by > other tools than just the database-system itself! SQL*Forms is well integrated with SQL*Plus (assuming we're talking about version 5.0). However, it is very true the RPT/RPF is not consistent. It uses a different "date" data type, for example, than SQL. Oracle does, by the way, have a data dictionary. The data dictionary tables are listed in a table called "dtab". Jan Harrington, sysop Scholastech Telecommunications UUCP: ihnp4!husc6!amcad!stech!sysop or allegra!stech!sysop BITNET: JHARRY@BENTLEY ******************************************************************************** Miscellaneous profundity: "No matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Banzai ********************************************************************************