Conference ulysse::rdb_vms_competition

    Just a suggestion, but why don't you talk to Information Builders
    (Focus). Focus is generally considered to be the best report writer
    in the industry. They would probably have a wealth of comparisons
    available (all of which, no doubt, would show Focus as the best).
    Nonetheless, the information would still be useful.
    
    ---- Michael Booth

    I've used the Powerhouse report writer QUIZ extensively. While it
    has some limitations its a good compromise between end-user capability
    and the features needed to enable programmers to produce complex
    reports. It's ability to link Rdb and RMS files easily and the
    excellent and user-accessible data dictionary make it a pleasure
    to use for reports of simple to moderate complexity.
    
    DECreporter is similarly a good compromise between the end-user
    need and the programmers needs. Why is it going away??? (rhetorical
    question. I've already talked to the DECreporter notes file about
    this with little success). The result is that we get responses in
    this notes file like this and Michael's which actually extoll the
    virtues of competitive products which have suddenly become
    complementary rather than competitive!
    

There are any number of reasons why a product might go away.  However,
unless a direct substitute is provided, the most likely reason is
financial.  It is quite possible that not enough people have been
purchasing it to pay for continued development.  There could be many
reasons for this, not the least of which is that marketing groups get
rated on how well their CMP programs do, so they tend to give more
support to 3rd party products than to those produced by engineering!

My own pet peeve with DECreporter is that it is layered on Datatrieve.
This is not a slap at Datatrieve, but just recognition that the largest
potential audience for DECreporter may actually be those customers who
decided Datatrieve DID NOT meet their needs and rejected purchasing it.
Further, those customers who are really satisfied with Datatrieve may
feel that they are quite happy without DECreporter, thank you.  The
bottom line is that there is no DEC produced report writer for use with
Rdb/VMS.  There is overkill (RALLY), underkill (TEAMDATA), and 3.5kill
(Datatrieve).

    I agree with Hal about the popularity of DecReporter.  I worked
    at two large Digital customers where Datatrieve was heavily used
    in both RSX and VMS environments.  I don't know when DecReporter
    was introduced, but all the people who used Datatrieve knew it
    well enough and were quite satisfied with what they had in the
    way of report generation directly from Datatrieve.  If something
    more was needed it in the way of report-writing it was usually
    accompanied by other requirements which suggested migrating the
    database to an entirely different product set.  In one case
    three fairly important RSX Datatrieve applications were moved to 
    Nomad2 (VM/CMS); in the other case I was involved in we 
    migrated two VMS DTR applications to RDB.
    
    Dave

    just a nit...
    
>    My own pet peeve with DECreporter is that it is layered on Datatrieve.
    
    DECreporter is no longer layered on top of DTR.  It now has its
    own report writing language.  You can optionally use DTR, though.
    DECreporter requires only CDD.

Does it access Rdb/VMS without use of Datatrieve?

    No it doesn't.  It only allows access to RMS files, unfortunately.
    If you do not link DECreporter with DTR, it uses its own report writer
    language which is documented in Chapter 6 of the User's Guide. 
    DECreporter without DTR is a great alternative for people who don't
    want the power, complexity or cost of DTR.

    re .8
    
    Unfortunately, the cobol generator's learning curve is more comparable
    to Rally than to DECreporter.