OpenVMS Differences Document

[Chris Sharman]

>Here at last is the promised list of the differences between PowerHouse 7.10
>and PowerHouse 8.20 on OpenVMS. We used 8.20 because that is the base for
>8.30 (the new release). I decided to send it out to the list because it's a
>small document and this will save me some time. Anyone not interested in
>this, please accept my apologies for wasting your time. The list is in Excel
>'97 format. Sorry but that's the only format it's available in.

Many thanks. I've now got it as a 70k html doc if anyone would like it (my desk
is a wintel free zone). I won't post it to the list.

Overall the promises therein are pretty wonderful - as good as I dared hope for
and certainly ought to bring the majority of VMS users forward to V8 I think.

Detailed comments (pure opinion):
All-in-one, CDD, help, rms journalling, kanji: gone/undecided - no loss
	for us. We've used & given up on CDD & RMS journalling long ago.
	I always meant to use help, but probably never would ;).
PHMSG gone - use sep product files - don't see this feature as much use, so
	won't mind the change.
Larger character & varchar (~2k -> ~32k) - good.
add/removecentury drops time in 7.10 - fixed in 8.20. Hadn't realised that -
	glad it's fixed.
dateextract rounds seconds in 8.20+. Would, say, 31-JUL-2000 23:59:59.50 get
	'rounded' to 1-AUG-2000 00:00:00, 31-JUL-2000 24:00:00, or
	31-JUL-2000 00:00:00 ? All of these appear as if they might cause
	problems for the unwary, if dateextract's treatment isn't consistent
	with field display, comparison, etc. I'm always careful to use 'floor'
	when extracting time for this reason.
datetime format changes from day fraction to clock time. It's a plus, although
	there may be some pain in transition - a few chunks of DCL time
	arithmetic to throw away.
PHD - to be added - hooray !!!
QUTIL to replace PHDFM; fdl to be added.
	I seldom use PH generated files: they need tuning via edit/fdl. Will
	8.30 be as flexible in handling differences between dictionary keys &
	RMS keys ?
	In particular:
		Keys in different order
		Adjacent key segments combined in RMS
		Keys of different types, eg:
			RMS key INT8, PH CHAR*8 (to allow use of "@@" on
				datetimestamps).
			PH key CHAR, RMS key collated.
	These are useful features that have worked through many versions
	(although I'd prefer the "@@" functionality to be properly added to
	numeric & date keys, perhaps with different syntax).
QKDriver can be a logical: good news - we can probably get rid of our
	proliferation of QKGO files.
Sitehook - preserved - we use it to drop priority for QTP & Quiz, to prevent
	greedy reports & the like from impacting others.

What about DALOCK & file/record locking - does that remain the same ?
Time will tell I suppose about any memory related bugs ...

Thanks,
Chris
_______________________________________________________________________
Chris.Sharman@CCAgroup.co.uk		http://www.ccagroup.co.uk/
CCA Stationery Ltd, Eastway, Fulwood, Preston, Lancashire, PR2 9WS.
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