PH manuals, PH Web and PH for VMS (was colon and pattern matc hing)

[Chris Sharman]

>I like the manuals on CD (other than the fact I DON'T like Acrobat Reader
>much).  As a consultant I move around a lot and a CD is lot easier to carry
>than a set of manuals.  Most clients I have been to can't find their manuals
>or their IT dept. has them locked away somewhere remote!  I have used the CD
>to install the 'books' on my laptop so I read them directly from the HDD.
>Why not request your boss provide you with a laptop?

Well, I don't move around, and I already have an Alphastation on my desk.

>I was told at the CIUG conference in Orlando last Sept. that the VMS
>specific syntax would be replaced in PH 8.30 sans the interactive dictionary
>though.  It was indicated the 8.3 might be released later this year.  

>Bob: If we can't have the old interactive PHD can we at least get Cognos to
>modify BI Architect to 'understand' and create/update PDL files?  Having a
>nice GUI PDL editor with full syntax checking would be a compromise although

Well, that's good news, although the straw poll here 12 months ago was pretty
clear that PHD was important. Architect is separately licenced.

>I for one don't like having to recompile the pdc file, kick all users off,
>unload the old one from memory, and then install the new PHD as I have to
>under HP/UX. :(

I'll second that (again).

For those of us who don't get sent to overseas conferences (shame) could Bob or
someone post here exactly what's in, what's out, and what's still undecided ?
I've reproduced the list from 12 months ago ...

|First the good news:
|CHAR and VARCHAR items may be up to 32K on other platforms, rather than the
|paltry 2K available to us on VMS at present.
|There's a BACKWARDS file retrieval option on other platforms: RMS has supported
|this (rms$v_reverse I think) since VMS 6.1, but PH hasn't given us access.
|Going to common code would presumably give us these enhancements.
|
|The bad news:
|1) The PHD dictionary maint feature. Lots of correspondence already here.
|2) Mailboxes are no longer supported. These are obviously closely akin to
|pipes.
|3) Commandstatus/severity functions.
|4) Office functions (All-in-1).
|5) Systemvalue functionality: VMS has logicals & symbols. Other platforms don't
|        appear to offer a choice of systemvalue type (or table).
|6) Reverse only exists in Quick.
|7) Set job & various print qualifiers to set report.
|8) Timestamp datatype & functions.

|I'd like a timestamp datatype which I can enter, display, find, choose by in
|full (ie time fields as well as date fields). This needs format extending, and
|some sort of dateconvert (cf nconvert) to allow a date range to include hours &
|minutes etc, rather than decimals. For find to be useful, generic needs
|extending from character fields to date fields too (or all fields): when you
|find a record you typically don't know the exact centisecond of the timestamp.
|
|I'd like a timestamp function which returns a datatype date, so I can do
|comparisons & get the right answer (see the last section of 710G release
|notes).
|
|It would be nice to have a formatdate function like the new formatnumber, so
|that I can convert dates to ascii nicely for use other than in fields.

>I know of several PH sites that got the PH web eval without the bagage and
>therefore the cost.  I understand that the per seat cost on an NT box is not
>unreasonable compared with similar enterprise products, at least in the USA.

Maybe it's just the UK salesforce culture. My earlier comment about Cognos UK
wasn't meant to include the good folk in Support - sorry.

But it took a public winge here to get details on the product, and even then
the terms offered would mean me going to my board to get budget approval
before starting evaluation: I'd sooner buy a product destined for the
mainstream.

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