Extensions to Languages

David Stockel recently wrote of his desire to improve I4GL, suggesting: Perhaps there should be a committee (with users) that evaluates suggestions like UPDATE BY NAME or CREATE TEMP TABLE LIKE on the basis of their contribution to the language as a development environment. This would demonstrate to the market a serious commitment on the part of Informix to have the best database development language on the market. The responses of Informix, being only "unofficial," show that some sort of official channel for responses (affirmative or negative) would be better, whether or not a committee idea--such as was proposed by Mr. Stockel--is implemented. Informix: If your customers give you feedback in a desire to improve the system, do you use these to your advantage? Why not create a database of suggestions, post them, and have users respond (along with their Informix product license number, so you know that they are true users)? How could it hurt to let your customers help determine your direction? A *service* industry should serve, and this is an excellent example of a way of serving your customers. In terms of standards-based arguments, I would observe that, if a product supports an entire standard + extras specifically requested by users, it still supports the standard, and could be much stronger. Indeed, very reasonable people have found problems with standards, and have quoted rational grounds for stating that the standards have problems; C. J. Date's "A Guide to the SQL Standard" (2nd Ed., 1989) has such reasonable ideas and explanations in it, as one example. My $.02, Steven J. Richardson/Merit Network, Inc.