PDKC2M.QKC (POW)

[Kevin Gordon]

I know this has been said before, but to those of us that have only used
PowerHouse on VMS, the concept of not having "POW" available for dictionary
maintenance is almost inconceivable. It has certainly never been thought of
as an "add-on" to be withdrawn at some future date and was never presented
as such by Cognos - it was part of the original package we were sold. For
the sort of things I routinely have to do I find PDL virtually unusable with
all its idiosyncrasies and restrictions. PDL has some use for selectively
updating production dictionaries on remote machines but it is ludicrous that
even PDL is only available in the full development licence, so the
dictionary still has to be copied back to the development machine anyway.

I do not see why we should have to "ask" for POW in version 8. Cognos has
withdrawn a fundamental (IMHO) feature of the product and we would like it
put back!

Another thing I don't understand is why, knowing that the dictionary format
was about to be totally changed in version 8 (one of the reasons given for
the withdrawal of "POW"), it was also changed radically between versions
7.10.F and 7.10.G. I know that some change was required to accommodate the
Y2K enhancements, but the whole underlying format was changed to make it
accessible to the standard PowerHouse tools like QSHOW and QUIZ (and,
ironically, POW, but this probably isn't a good idea). This was a welcome
improvement that allows the development of user-written dictionary reporting
tools, but all this is (presumably) lost again in version 8. Weird.

Kevin Gordon, Sea Containers, London

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-powerh-l@sphere.swau.edu
[mailto:owner-powerh-l@sphere.swau.edu]On Behalf Of Hamilton, Allison
Sent: 05 March 1999 17:55
To: powerh-l@lists.swau.edu; 'STEWARTM@dteenergy.com'
Subject: RE: PDKC2M.QKC (POW)


On VMS, where POW was created, the dictionary is a set of indexed files,
allowing for easy access and update through a set of QUICK screens. (VMS
originally had no other dictionary interface.)
In PH 8 (and previous PH versions on UNIX, HP/IX and MPE/V platforms) the
dictionary is a single direct (or relative?) file.  It's format does not
allow for updating and expansion through POW in the straight-forward manner
that it does on pre-PH 8 VMS with indexed files.  It was not designed to be
dynamically updateable and expandable.

BUT - keep asking for POW on PH 8, and if enough people want it, there will
be a business case for finding a way to get it into PH 8.

Where there is a will --- there is always a way...
Allison Hamilton
As always - my opinions are not always that of my employers, but are mine
alone.


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