Online library systems

[Steve Thomas]

At 8:15 AM -0700 14/7/97, Anna Schwind wrote:
>On Mon, 14 Jul 1997, Ken Feser wrote:
>> Dynix runs on a relational database called UniVerse which a company called
>> Vmark sells.  I never heard of Universe or Vmark before I started working
>> at a Dynix library.
>> I have heard that part of the function of UniVerse is
>> to port old Dynix code from the Pick mainframe operating system over to
>> Unix, but I don't know if that is accurate.

Actually, not really. UniVerse is a relational database system derived from
the Pick operating system and running on Unix and NT platforms. Pick is
designed as a complete operating system _including_ a relational database.
UniVerse is essentially the database portion of Pick. OK?

The Dynix system was originally written for Pick, and UniVerse has allowed
Dynix to run on a wider variety of platforms (e.g. Unix). Its not a
question of porting old code -- Dynix is still developing, and makes use of
UniVerse features not available to Pick systems.

>
>UniVerse is written in Pick BASIC (*shudder*).  It runs on unix boxes and
>NT boxes.  So I guess if the old dynix code is in Pick Basic what you
>have been told about porting probably makes sense.

A bit of confusion here: as far as I know, UniVerse is written in C (or
maybe C++). Where BASIC comes in is that Pick uses BASIC for applications
development within the database. I.e. Universe/Pick is the relational
database, applications using that database (such as Dynix) are written in
BASIC.

I understand the "shudder" at the thought of BASIC, but this actually has
lots of advantages. The BASIC used is really very powerful, with lots of
functions provided specifically to deal with the database's record and file
structures. BASIC makes it really easy to prototype and develop
applications, and end users (like me) can easily provide add-on
functionality to the system.

BASIC programs are compiled, not interpreted (although they may be compiled
into pseudocode), so execution is very fast.

>From the point of view of this Systems Administrator, UniVerse is great --
easy to use, easy to develop on, and fast.

>
>...  And I don't have
>a lot of faith in the Universe print spooler.  It works some complete
>voodoo and bypasses my unix print queue.

We don't use it. When we first got it (seven years back) we couldn't get it
to work, so we 'bypassed' it. Universe allows you to have all prints go to
a 'hold' file instead of direct to a printer, so we do that -- it means you
can print them later from unix and you can reprint if necessary.

>However, to be absolutely honest, UniVerse has never given me any
>trouble.  It runs smoothly and without hassle.  It recovers well from
>crashes (or has for me), seems not to be a processor hog and returns
>user transactions in a timely manner.

I second that.

None of this is relevant to web4lib, but I had to correct these small
misunderstandings.


Steve

 ___________________________________________________________________________
 Stephen Thomas, Senior Systems Analyst
 Mail : Barr Smith Library, The University of Adelaide, South Australia 5005
 Phone: (08) 8303 5190                                   Fax: (08) 8303 4369
 Email: sthomas at library.adelaide.edu.au
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