Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!husc6!think!ames!lll-tis!daitc!jkrueger From: jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil (Jonathan Krueger) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: Informix problem with escape sequences Message-ID: <187@daitc.daitc.mil> Date: 26 Sep 88 21:52:51 GMT References: <483@pan.UUCP> <860@vsi.UUCP> <806@ontenv.UUCP> Reply-To: jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil.UUCP (Jonathan Krueger) Organization: Defense Applied Information Technology Center, Alexandria VA Lines: 35 In article <806@ontenv.UUCP> soley@ontenv.UUCP (Norman S. Soley) writes: >"it's a poor workman who blames his tools" I prefer "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail". Yes, it's silly to blame your hammer if you don't know how to use it. But it's even sillier to blame a hammer for doing a poor job of tightening screws; the solution is not to learn how to use the hammer better, it's to get a screwdriver. At the same time there are better and worse hammers, and better and worse hammering skills. But the difference between the best and worst hammer, or the best and worst hammerer, is small compared to the difference between turning screws and trying to hammer them, or hitting at nails with a screwdriver. (*) In the database world, we look to vendor products to provide tools for two distinct sets of tasks: controlling the data, and building the user interface. The relational model has helped formalize and standardize the first set, but says nothing about the second. Most vendors provide adequate toolchests for the first; quality of vendor tools for the second varies widely. At this point I have a theory that vendors who most cleanly separate the two, and who specify how each relates to the other as simply as possible, are most likely to provide good quality tools for both. -- Jon (*) Although your shop teacher's practice that you weren't going to get to use power tools until he was satisfied with your use of hand tools applies here. When I hear about "power users" I wonder how many of them are any safer with bandwidths than they would be with band saws... -- Jonathan Krueger uunet!daitc!jkrueger jkrueger@daitc.arpa (703) 998-4777 Inspected by: No. 15