riddle@woton.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle ) (12/15/87)
In the course of experimenting with a trial copy of Informix-SQL, I
just learned something unpleasant:
On the basis of a paper we got some time back from RDS called "A
Comparative Analysis of Standard Informix and Informix-SQL," we had
been operating under the assumption that converting our databases from
old Informix to Informix-SQL would be a pretty easy job. The paper
describes a program called "dbconvert" which is supposed to automate
the job of converting the schemas and data.
Well, after a couple of weeks of struggling to use dbconvert I finally
called RDS and was told that it is buggy and we shouldn't use it.
Instead they suggest that we dump our data to ASCII text files, build
new schemas by hand, and reload the data.
This is unfortunate news on two counts: the recommended procedure is a
lengthy, troublesome process and basically the same one we would have
to go through to move data between two completely different DBMSs put
out by different companies, so it essentially eliminates the big
advantage we thought came with sticking to Informix; and secondly, if
dbconvert is buggy, it makes me wonder what else is wrong with
Informix-SQL.
Luckily we haven't yet bought the product...
--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
--- Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Shriners Burns Institute.
--- riddle@woton.UUCP {ihnp4,harvard}!ut-sally!im4u!woton!riddlerbp@investor.UUCP (Bob Peirce) (12/18/87)
> ...if > dbconvert is buggy, it makes me wonder what else is wrong with > Informix-SQL. > > --- riddle@woton.UUCP {ihnp4,harvard}!ut-sally!im4u!woton!riddle Informix-SQL seems pretty clean on our Altos 3068. On the other hand, there seems to be some bugs in the ALL-II libraries. We converted a C program from an Altos 68000 to the 3068 which uses this library to access the database and every once in a while it can't find a record it was working with only moments before. We reported this to Altos but have heard nothing. Our long term solution was to recode in 4gl and these bugs make that option considerably more attractive. -- Bob Peirce, Pittsburgh, PA 412-471-5320 uucp: ...!{allegra, bellcore, cadre, idis, psuvax1}!pitt!investor!rbp NOTE: Mail must be < 30K bytes/message