[Info-vax] wrong file format

[Dave Froble]

On 1/6/2021 7:02 PM, 1tim.... at gmail.com wrote:
> RMS could be improved in a large number of ways. I'd really like to see some set operations, where you can operate on a number of records as a group.
>
> Like a sys$get_recordset, where you specify a simple range on a key. i.e. Key 1, from "AA" to "DD". one of the arguments would have to be a buffer large enough to hold the returned data.  Today, we do these things in code layered on top of RMS.

Recordsets would not have been reasonable in 1978.  They are reasonable 
today because of today's memory sizes.

> sys$put_recordset
> sys$update_recordset
> sys$delete_recordset
>
> etc.
>
> A set of records is what most businesses are dealing with, like item lookups based on attributes, getting order history, processing lines on an order, etc.
>
> then as a next go round, maybe simple joins on keys...but that begins to increase complexity, where maybe a native RDB or OODB starts making sense.

What you're suggesting is pretty much what decent RDBMS products 
provide, along with many other advantages.

Rdb should have been made a part of the normal VMS distribution.  It 
would have made VMS much more desirable, and locked more people into 
it's advantages.

In my own personal opinion, and I'm biased, the greatest flaw of RMS was 
not including record and field definitions associated with ISAM and 
Relative files.  RDBMS products do this.  My bias is that I have an old 
product that does just that.


-- 
David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      E-Mail: davef at tsoft-inc.com
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