On Wednesday, 96/08/28, Andrew Grillet wrote to David Noon about
"Scoop the pools!" as follows:

AG> I use four dimensional differential calculus. (you know: curl,
AG> div, grad, like in fluid flow.)

Hi Andrew,

I am quite familiar with calculus of several variables. I still don't
see how that can relate to soccer, but then I don't know much about
soccer. I'm an Australian and follow Hawthorn. [The Hawks don't play
soccer.]

Can you netmail or Internet me the details please? This seems
intriguing.

[If you have it in MS Word 2.0 equation editor format that would be
superb. Uuencode and send it to dwnoon{at}ibm.net if possible.]

AG>  DN> If you port it to DB2/2 it would even be on-topic for this echo.
AG> 
AG> I did try. I put a lot of effort into DB2, but I just couldnt do
AG> it.

What was the problem? Remember that DB2/2 requires a host programming
language; it doesn't provide any features other than database access.

AG> I have that stuff well sussed. The real trick with this is
AG> 
AG> a) the user interface has to be extemely intuitive and quick. I
AG> have to enter each day's results from teletext in the morning, and
AG> the family all want other channels!

I don't have a TV, so I'd need to freq that from you. [Or use the
newspaper.]

AG> b) The actual computation chouls be farmed out to C routines and
AG> done in floating point (sinking point for those of you with pentiums
AG> :-) instead of in BCD by interpreted code.

Well, I'd use PL/I rather than C, but the underlying principle is the
same. Also, SQL syntax is largely derived from PL/I, so mixing PL/I and
DB2/2 is a breeze, if you can afford the professional edition compiler.

AG> The problem with DB2 was I could find no simple waay to do pick
AG> lists, menus etc. Actually no way at all - these things are not
AG> simple in dBase either. I know I could use VAC++, but these days I
AG> expect a database system to be all singing all dancing. (But not all
AG> bugs like dBase 5).

Good database systems require a host language. A number of them
provide you with a quick&dirty language of sorts, but it is seldom
adequate. A bundled DBMS+language usually ends up like dBASE or MS
Access.

Perhaps you should have tried VisPro REXX. It has excellent
integration with DB2/2. Indeed, you forget about DB2 and just build
your app using VisPro REXX. It then builds the database structure
automagically [well, almost]. However, REXX doesn't crunch numbers all
that quickly.

AG> Hope some of this was on-topic.

A little was, I suppose.

Regards

Dave


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