[Info-Ingres] String Manipulations

[Emiliano]

On 2007-03-20, Roy Hann <specially at processed.almost.meat> wrote:
> This is correct, but take another step.  If the DB contains the reference 
> model (business logic) in terms of general constraints, why couldn't 
> applications request the business logic from the database and self-configure 
> at start-up?   They already do something similar to get the meta-data when 
> applications submit a dynamic query to the server.  We don't request the 
> constraints and we don't have the means to do it, but it would be ideal if 
> we could.  It's something to hope for I think.

We do in fact largely implement our current system this way; we have
an application generator that goes through the database and some
metadata we specify to create the (web-based) UI. We only write SQL;
no javascript, no HTML, no CSS. There are however complex business
rules that can only adequately be captured in a trigger/function. We
have hint tables for the generator so it can do the right thing.

The whole thing is pretty immature right now, more a research prototype
than a full-rounded prodct, and we don't have all the maintenance kinks
worked out yet, but for simple administrative and lookup applications
it works OK, and we have tons of those. It's quite unique (which is
good and bad); anyone in the neighbourhood of Arnhem, the Netherlands
is welcome to come and take a peek.

-- 
Emiliano