Re: Informix vs. Sybase vs. Oracle vs. (gasp) MS SQL Server

In article <347E6F62.1AAA@agd.nsw.gov.au>, Anthony Mandic <no_sp.am@agd.nsw.gov.au> writes >David Williams wrote: > Yep, thats what was being guarded against. The app could have > been termed overly retentive for this reason. It had to be > as failsafe as possible. If a connection failed the app was > smart enough to be able to reconnection when possible and > continue. If it died it could recover from its client-side > created files. It didn't give up without a fight. But of course, > this didn't mean that we became complacent. > And this is the CHEAPEST application that will perform the task? Remember most business custoemrs want cheap system...(every supplier says that there system will work!!) >> Debug logs,screen messages. > > Yep, anything and everything. > >> >> So does Informix 4GL, with startlog() function, all errors are t >> >> trapped by the Informix runtime library and logged. >> > >> > Good, thats the correct approach. Except that it only relates >> > to the server side of things. You'd have to rely on core dumps >> > (if on UNIX) and/or a debugger to debug a client app. Note that >> > there are two basic scenarios, the app failing or the app working >> > but doing the wrong thing. Which is harder to resolve? >> > >> Either is easy with debug logs. Switch on, get a trace, debug it. >> Most debugging can be narrowed down to one screen operation by the >> user, plaster with debug and that 's it. > > This is a point in time issue. But you have to work back thru > the app to work out how it got into that state and how the > data became incorrect. Often times it was as the result of > some hairly written code in a module made by a programmer > who either didn't have a proper grasp of what was required or > didn't care. > Which you have to do anyway, what's your point? > Of course, we've drifted off topic now. But while we're here, > how many others have designed apps to guard against problems > and what measures did they take? > No the app but the database. - unique indexes - not null - we would have constriants if I had my way.. >-am -- David Williams