Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!mejac!orchard.la.locus.com!prodnet.la.locus.com!jfr From: jfr@locus.com (Jon Rosen) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: Relational Database info needed. Message-ID: <25335@oolong.la.locus.com> Date: 12 Jun 91 19:46:31 GMT References: <5383.28501503@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu> <1991Jun09.222112.10715@chinet.chi.il.us> <5400.285550fb@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu> Organization: Locus Computing Corp, Los Angeles Lines: 50 In article <5400.285550fb@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu> dlfrost@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu writes: >> > Try Focus, it is a relational database that will run on a pc, mini, or a >mainframe. The PC/FOCUS comes in DOS, OS/2, and LAN version. I know they >have a UNIX version for mini computers but I am not sure if they have one >for a pc unix version. > Guru :-) Guru, are you really one? If so, how can you fall victim to the various marketing hype that calls FOCUS a relational database? (Donning asbestos suit in anticipation of all the FOCUS fans who are now pulling out their flamethrowers) Before you all start shooting flames my way, let me say that I spent 15 years of my career (before switching to DB2, Ingres, Oracle and Teradata, "real" relational databases in my book) devoted to supporting and consulting with users of FOCUS and its ancestor RAMIS. I am intimately familiar with both products, and its is quite clear that they are both fundamentally hierarchical/network databases, not relational databases. That is not to say that either can't be used in a "psuedo-relational" way... but the products are principally designed to support hierarchical file structures with links between associated files (nee pointers). This does not make them bad products... In fact, I think they are both extremely GOOD products... they have great application development environments and 4GLs... they are both very powerful and can be easy to use (at least until you start to move into the more esoteric areas)... However, neither product understands anything resembling a relational database query language such as QUEL or SQL... Their 4GL query languages are relatively unrigorous (albeit they both contain features that do much of what SQL does, in some cases more)... I do not intend this to degenerate into a discussion of whether FOCUS or RAMIS are "better" than DB2, et al... That argument could take years and Gigabits of bandwidth... In many ways, both products ARE better than comparable relational databases... But to call them relational databases (despite what their respective marketing departments would want you to believe) is stretching definitions beyond where they should be... PS - I would also argue that dBase II/III/IV (and its lookalikes) is not a relational database either and I have so argued for many years... Again, that doesn't make it bad, simply not relational... Jon Rosen