Re: INFORMIX WISH LIST

Tim Schaefer <tschaefe@mindspring.com> wrote: Several top notch wishs from you and several others. You have allready mentioned my biggest wishs (most of those in your original list) and someone allready said I would probably wish a complete redesign of the connectivity software. That's realy needed as has been made so clear by the large number of posts here. There are two main issues: 1) Security and 2) ease of installation. Other wishs: 1) Implement all (or most) of SQL 92 There have been many wishes for this and that special SQL construct. There was reasently a thread on this where Jonathan Leffler so eloquently described the significant usefulness of just one of the SQL 92 features. There are many others. They have been bussy with a lot of other features and functions and should now allocate a little more resources to this. One caveat: They may allready have done a lot of it in Universal Server. In that case this wish is to have Universal Server (or at least a limited version with this functionality) available at a price no higher than the current 7.x releases. 2) Java in the engine I know they are working on this for the Universal Server. It should be in all their engines. An extensive set of functionality would be opened wide up if this was implemented. Not the least beeing to relieve us from the shackles of the current SPL. 2b) Extend SPL significantly The stored procedure language of Informix is a misnomer for a language. It's so limited one can only implement the simplest of features with it. NB! I see this only as an alternative to 2 above if implementing Java and making that usefull as an SPL is difficult. However even if Java is implemented the SPL should at least have some features added like variable indexing into char variables. 3) Implement UPSHIFT/DOWNSHIFT and other functions in every engine This isn't a big wish of mine (other than to avoide all the questions for it here in c.d.i.). These and a series of other functions should however be available for compatibility with competing suppliers and for there general usefullness. Many of them (like the two mentioned) should however also be possible to use when creating indexes. Without that functionality they are hardly usefull. I know that these issues are generally solved by the Universal Server. However this is to remind Informix that they can't expect to charge a high premium for access to simple functionality. It has to be in all engines. The best again is of course to charge the right price for the Universal server - so this is my last wish for now: 4) Make Universal Server available the price of the current engines or lower. I can understand that they charge high prices right now. The Universal Server is however such a revolution that if it was made available at prices similar to other alternative Informix could soon become *the one preffered database company* for every and all purposes. Flood the market and earn money on the volume you would create. That's the old american way to success that's still valid. 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