Re: Fixed length records

On Wed, 2 Nov 2005 13:17:23 -0800, Stan wrote:

>Thanks Hugo and thanks for educating me about site usage. We are a shop that
>is in the process of converting from a COBOL based legacy system to a SQL
>Server environment and we are all new at this.

Hi Stan,

Good luck, than. Keep in mind that converting the data will be the
easiest part of the job. Changing your mindset will be the hardest.

COBOL is a third generation, algorithmic language. The basic structure
of Cobol data processing is "read record - check if data qualifies for
operation - do operation - write record - read next record - repeat
until end of file".

SQL is a fourth-generation, declarative language. The basic structure of
data processing in SQL is "do something on all qualifying rows at once".
Quite a difference!

Best, Hugo
--

(Remove _NO_ and _SPAM_ to get my e-mail address)
.

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