strang@alberta.uucp (Lisa Strang) (09/25/89)
I am peripherally involved in the development of a medical billing application using INFORMIX on an SCO Xenix, and since it is the first time any of us are using INFORMIX - or Xenix for that matter, is there anything out in netland that documents mismatches between manuals and reality, common problems, etc? If not, and if anyone is interested, I would be willing to summarize any responses of problems/others that are mailed to me and post on the net if appropriate. Thanks, ======== Lisa Strang Edmonton, AB, Canada (strang@alberta) ========
mark@promark.UUCP (Mark J. DeFilippis) (09/27/89)
In article <1989Sep24.214421.7162@alberta.uucp>, strang@alberta.uucp (Lisa Strang) writes: > > I am peripherally involved in the development of a medical billing > application using INFORMIX on an SCO Xenix, and since it is the > first time any of us are using INFORMIX - or Xenix for that matter, > is there anything out in netland that documents mismatches between > manuals and reality, common problems, etc? You don't say if you are using ESQL/C or 4GL, or whatever, but I will make you aware of the rediculous policy INFORMIX SOFTWARE (Formerly RDS Inc) has of not providing users of their product with bug reports. Our story, and we are not alone: We started using Informix-4GL when it was in its infancy. After finding out that there were bugs that wiped out entire tables "the hard way", as well as many other bugs, and "bug like symptoms" they called features, we would call tech support and question them about it. The next day they would call back and say, "Oh yea, that's bug number XXXXX". Well thanks for the 2 days lost development time! Over the 3 years we used the 4GL to develop large scale applications our "support call file" started to become a support call book. What really bothered me was that Informix Software Inc. REQUIRES you to have maintenance to be eligible to receive software upgrades, which they charge you for. Many times these upgrades were just their bug fixes. Most of the time, support response was so slow, we found the work-around, and called Informix and provided them with the work-around when we had to call 2 days later on another bug. We were paying support $$$ to do this! It is my feeling that had we used another package at the time, we would have cut the time in half (Documented log hours for the project show 40% of logged time working on undocumented problems, bugs, features, whatever you want to call them. Oracle, and Ingress were not available under PC/UNIX, or PC/XENIX at the time. It is possible things are different now. However, I doubt it since I manage the Unix systems at Adelphi University MTH/CSC Dept, and we have a SQL and ESQL/C license with support. I have not received a bug report yet! -- Adelphi University, Garden City, NY 11530 (516) 663-1170 Department of Mathematics and Computer Science markd@adelphi.UUCP or mark@promark.UUCP UUCP: ...philabs!sbcs!bnlux0!adelphi!markd