Re: Informix OnLine 7.2 for Windows NT Problems...

Nils Myklebust wrote: > > billy@west.co.za ("Billy Wheeler") wrote: > > :On 23 May 97 at 13:11, Nils Myklebust wrote: > : > :> Sorry, but it's Informix who is utterly, totaly, completely s... on > :> this. Even on Unix they have so many connectivity problems. Why > :> can't someone at Informix at some time listen, learn and do the > :> right thing on connectivity. It is possible to do in such a way that > :> it works almost automatically out of the box. By now I believe a lot > :> of customers have heard about all the connectivity problems in > :> connection with Informix an go somwhere else. That's sad for an > :> otherwise so excelent product. > : > :Huh? What connectivity problems does Informix have on Unix? > > On Unix it's generally not problems in the sense that it doesn't work. > It does. There are however far to many things that have to be set up > in a not too intuitive way (sqlhosts, /etc/services ++). A tool is > needed here to make things realy simple. (There may be problems > related to hosts files - .rhosts, /etc/hosts.equiv and possibly others > - but that I don't currently know well enough to evaluate.) > > This is far from the biggest issue of course. The big issue is the > connectivity from MS Windows (95 and NT) to Unix and to Windows NT. > That is so bad it's indescribable on the net. > > Other database vendors may have even worse connectivity options, but > that is no excuse for Informix. > > Nils.Myklebust@idg.no > NM Data AS, P.O.Box 9090 Gronland, N-0133 Oslo, Norway > My opinions are those of my company > The Informix FAQ is at http://www.iiug.org Not to intrude on your discussion, but I have to agree with Nils. I've found connectivity for Informix via ODBC / I-connect to be a major problem. The documentation is extremely bad, not to mention the set-up interface. Informix networking is a real pain, especially the set up. Instead of calling it "CLI" call it ODBC. Before I get my rant going, yes, I have documentation for I-connect. Yes, the I-connect documentation is sh**. As a solution, Informix needs to improve the documentation for I-connect, and the interfaces. They need to keep in mind that a majority of users and even developers do not understand networking--nor should they have to. When they use words describing things they should always reference which machine it is they're talking about. Using words like CLIENT or SERVER would be good. Many of the settings and the documentation currently do not specify whether the setting is for the CLIENT or the SERVER. A developer or end-user could really get I-connect working in minutes if the documentation was more clear about what it's talking about. The set-up interface should also have real HELP for each setting, saying EXACTLY what each setting is, whether it's for the CLIENT or the SERVER, and what the effect will be on the other end. I just loaded up VC++5.0, and it comes with a really nice ODBC manager, and actually clarified some of the mess made with I-connect. Again, if you want to be a big time software company, you need to focus on improving the products that are causing the customer the most pain: 1 - Fix Iconnect. Or dump it, and just provide ODBC drivers. Stop punishing your customers--look at all the posts here in c.d.i. for Iconnect. If you were innovative, adjust all your environment variables to describe locality, i.e. SERVERHOST= , SERVERSQLHOSTS=, CLIENTSQLHOSTS=, CLIENTHOST=, etc. Then, when you connect things the settings speak for themselves. 2 - Improve performance monitoring tools. 3 - Modify the engine so you can tune it dynamically without having to bounce the engine. There has been some considerable improvements coming from other software companies, like Symantec, who improved much of their Visual Cafe product based on rants in their newsgroup. Now they have one of the best of breed products. Imagine, from listening to their customers and users. Tim -- Tim Schaefer \\\\|// tschaefe@mindspring.com (6 6) ------------------------oOOo---( )---o00o--------- http://www.inxutil.com