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From: kling@ICS.UCI.EDU (Rob Kling)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Is Programming R&D or Production?
Message-ID: <9006270907.aa25989@ICS.UCI.EDU>
Date: 28 Jun 90 16:16:38 GMT
Lines: 41
In-reply-to: Your message of 27 Jun 90 14:54:58 +0000.
             <48951@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>


Hi ....


I saw your note about PC database systems badly "designed" .......

I've been teaching an IS course which includes a segment on
database design, using paradox. (I also use Paradox for a variety
of small systems on a research porject I direct). Paradox has a
neat interface, but  is awful in porviding suppport for porgram
development & documentation (e.g., lacks a good interactive editor
to facilitate documentation, and tools to locate x-refed variables,
etc.)  I've talked with deisgners of mincomputer relational
products like INgress, and they claim that the lousy environments
behind the pC porducts are also typical of relational database amangers for
minis.

Products like Paradox, Dbase, etc. INVITE bad designs ...
even though I prefer them to C for writing database systems. (grin)


There are a number of books about Paradox & 3 million similar
books about Dbase, etc. These books teach the mechanics of the
systems, much in the way that pascal & C books teach  about language
features rather than software design in language X.

On this campus, the administratyion is developing a number of
inofrmation systems in Revelation ... using student porgrammers who
are not trained in IS design .... you can imagine the quality of
the resulting porducts ....

I have yet to see a good book on the design of database systems
that is aimed at highly interactive products
(rather than at transaction-oriented
mainframe systems).

Have you seen anything of use for professionals or students
of this kind?

Rob Kling
UC-Irvine