Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdahl!rtech!billc@rtech.UUCP
From: billc@rtech.UUCP (Bill Coffin)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Parsing Query Languages in the Client or Server
Message-ID: <3721@rtech.rtech.com>
Date: 28 Sep 89 18:44:46 GMT
References: <811@metaphor.Metaphor.COM>
Sender: news@rtech.rtech.com
Lines: 25

From article <811@metaphor.Metaphor.COM>, by philf@xymox.metaphor.com (Phil Fernandez):
>>    write a parser and port it everywhere.  If you want VARs and others to
>>    get involved, it behooves you to support a non-befuddling interface.
> 
> Wait a minute.  Metaphor was perfectly successful in writing a SQL
> parser for BLI.  No one at Metaphor decided it was too hard; ...

Yes, and Metaphor did a great job.  Several other customers wrote frontends.
Boeing did one even before BLI did.  However, the argument stands.  Most
potential VARs were not willing to enter into that kind of development
investment to gamble on a new company offering a worthy but controversial
technology.  

BLI started with no front-end parsers.  With a few exceptions, VARs were
overwhelmingly uninterested.  BLI then wrote a few parsers for demo purposes
to try to show potential VARs how easy it was.  It soon became obvious that,
again with a few notable exceptions, no-one was biting, so BLI cleaned up some 
of the demo stuff and offered it as a product set.  Eventually, BLI had
a portable (but minimal) frontend product.  However, this was an
afterthought -- the original philosophy of the company founders was that
the BLI product was some sort of smart disk drive.


billc@rtech.uucp ( or, if you must, {sun,pyramid,mtxinu,amdahl}!rtech!billc )
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