As pointed out by George Land and Brian, they're effectively the same except for some very specific features that the average developer or end-user would've generally utilise...so to a great extent it doesn't make a lot of difference to most.
To add what already has been said... UniVerse also has: - UV/SQL is embedded into the database engine, not merely tacked on (just to add to what Brian mentions). - UV/Net for transparent file/table access to/from remote UV servers. Some consider it better (more integrated, transparent,etc) than UD's NFA. - Distributed file/table support. Related physical files, either local or remote, can be logically joined as a 'distributed file' - UV's transaction logging supports nested transactions- UV is considered somewhat easier to port an application or databases from PICK-like environments, than UD. UniData has: - UD can support multiple 'instances' or versions of UD on the same server. Whereas you can only have one instance or version of UV installed per server. - better a 'global catalog' / shared memory management for cataloged programs than UV's implementation - currently External Data Access (EDA) is available only on Unidata, but is due to be supported on UniVerse soon. This allow read/write access to third-party databases from your BASIC application, as if it was a native hashed-file. IBM's U2 product web pages do a somewhat lacklustre job of explaining these and other differences. APT Solutions (the UK Master Distributor for IBM U2) website does a better of highlighting them, but doesn't do a feature-by-feature comparison... http://www.u2uk.com/universe.asp http://www.u2uk.com/unidata.asp The probably the biggest thing UD has going for it - the engineering team came from UniData, all the UV guys stayed with the DataStage product (now ironically owned by IBM too). Although, IBM does not give UD any preference at the expense of UV. Although...why do any the developerWorks sample seem to be coded for UD (first)!! :-) Regards David -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Leach Sent: Monday, April 14, 2008 4:00 AM To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Subject: RE: [U2] Difference between Universe and Unidata Well I couldn't resist. First, I support products on both databases. Both have broadly the same core multivalue features, though with different approaches to syntactic variances: UniVerse accounts are set up with specific 'flavors' (emulations) whereas UniData uses a combination of a run-time ECL type and option settings. UniVerse supports a wider range of dictionary types. UniData handles sub-values better. UniVerse has nicer Basic syntax, though UniData is catching up. UniVerse has far better support for SQL and offers NLS support. Moreover most of the interfaces used today began life on UniVerse. Until recently UniVerse had better memory handling, fewer arbitary restrictions and was more developer-friendly. It has a wider variety of file types and in general terms historically you have been able to do more with it. UniData by contrast is more keyed to the 'pure' database functionality: it has better recovery features and high availability. It probably has better indexing, and may be a better choice for applications that do large numbers of small transactions. Sometimes the huge flexibility you have with UniVerse can be a double-edged sword: the enquiry language in particular can be 'helpful' to the point of giving sensible looking information even when you screw up. UniData is more pedantic in its syntax, which may just be a good thing! To sum it up: As a developer I prefer UniVerse and develop all my UniData stuff on UniVerse platform, BUT if I were a DBA I would probably think different. Over the years the two products have become ever closer. Most of the middleware has been ported across, and the extension APIs for things like socket handling are mirrorred on both systems. And I'd still rather use each of them than the alternatives. Brian ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
