from ice to vpql
DESCRIPTION
From ICE to vPQL. A look back at Eighteen years of SiR and SiR conferences (1983 – 2001). Changes in the appearance of SiR. The user interface has changed beyond all recognition 1983 - character based 2001 - GUI The style and content of the conference has changed as well - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
From ICE to vPQLA look back at Eighteen years
of
SiR
andSiR conferences
(1983 – 2001)
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
Changes in the appearance of SiR
The user interface has changed beyond all recognition 1983 - character based 2001 - GUI
The style and content of the conference has changed as well 1983 – Handwritten slides and JCL/PQL listings 2001 - Powerpoint and WWW
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1983 – Goldsmiths College – London
Two days First day for ICL user / convertor meeting Second day for the rest of the users
No published proceedingsNo real memory of the event except
Hard to get to Hard seats ICL convertor ‘bashing’ extended to day 2
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1984 – Royal Hotel – London
European two day eventKey note speech in which SiR was almost
dismissed out of hand and relational praisedOne paper had 16 pages of schema listingsAnother talked of HOPP – Host Pre-
Processor which generated SiR/HOSTAlmost all papers were either typewritten or
fixed pitch fonts – nothing fancy !
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1984 – Royal Hotel – London
SiR enhancements Concurrent SiR/FORMS updating Double key entry in SiR/FORMS SQL+ SAVE TABLE in SiR/DBMS
New SiR products SiR/GRAPH PC versions of SiR/DBMS
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1984 – Royal Hotel – London
Highlights Hand written slides Hard to see screen due to layout of room Appalling time keeping by session chairmen
Names and Papers to note Kathy Brooks of Pinpoint mentioned in one paper Bernie Enlander on the ‘Relational model & SiR’ John Lemon on ‘Cows in Cairo’
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1985 – Hotel Russell – London
Two day UK only event – 77 attendeesKeynotes speech indicated the way ahead
was ‘Intelligent Knowledge Based Systems’ Relied heavily on PROLOG
‘SQL is not enough’ by Barry Robinson outlined pitfalls in SQL Highly readable Still relevant today
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1985 – Hotel Russell – London
Papers were both technical and user applications ‘Missing Values in SiR’
by Catherine Ellis ‘Menu driven systems in SiR
by K. Brooks and B. Enlander ‘The UK Family expenditure Survey’
by M. Janes ‘Pancreatic Cancer in North East Scotland’ by ..
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1985 – Hotel Russell – London
SiR Inc announcements Read / Write external files Access SQL tabfiles from PQL Indexes on TABFILES MODIFY SCHEMA command Improved journalling including UPLOAD /
DOWNLOAD SQL updating FORMS runs on IBM 327x terminals
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1985 – Hotel Russell – London
SiR Inc announcements Full screen data base definition – SCHEMA eSQL+ - embedded SQL for FORTRAN SIR/PC
– 512K RAM – 10 Mbytes disc– Maths co-processor
SIR/GRAPH – create data set from DBMS or SQL – then ‘edit’
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1985 – Hotel Russell – London
SiR Inc announcements for version 3 File system spanning devices Full concurrency over all modules Transaction COMMIT processing Automatic ‘roll-back’ recovery Improved integration of modules Improved and integrated security across all
modules
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1985 – Hotel Russell – London
Highlights Barry Robinson's paper on SQL The ‘upbeat’ sales pitch for version 3 The lack of anything ‘outwith’ the conference
And was this the place where the ‘Blue-tacked’ posters demolished the
plasterwork ?
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1986 – Old Swan Hotel - Harrogate
Fourth conference and first outside London Hotel was where Agatha Christie ‘disappeared’
Much better atmosphere People talked instead of going homeSpecial Interest Groups – SIGs
ICL SQL
Nothing on paper about SiR’s plans for next version
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1986 – Old Swan Hotel - Harrogate
Papers and proceedings had less code More diagrams Overheads were getting better ‘The use of SiR/DBMS as a teaching tool’ –
Elizabeth Frondigoun ‘Generating Personalised Mail from a SiR data
base’ – Linda Croxford
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1986 – Old Swan Hotel - Harrogate
User enhancement poll Checkpoint on retrievals SPSSx SAVE FILE Better integration of modules Saving summary file for re-processing Better performance FORMS enhancements Full screen editor support Transaction processing –COMMIT / ROLLBACK
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1987 – Pomme D’Or - Jersey
Longest conference ever Tuesday arrival – Friday departure
SIGs ICL (still ) and now SIR/PC SQL or Large data bases
Still a bit of Oracle ‘bashing’ ISI & USIR were promising wonderful things
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1987 – Pomme D’Or - Jersey
USIR report SIR/GRAPH – PC based using summary file SIR/LAN SIR/ENGINE – 3 x 80386 processors SIR/FORMS to be replaced with ICE system Internal restructure of SiR files
– Record instead of case based– Would allow partial backups and restores
How much of this have we seen ?
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1987 – Pomme D’Or - Jersey
Papers A comparison of SiR and Oracle - Barry
Robinson The relevance of Relation Theory to Today’s
SiR user – Trevor Simpson SiR Medians – Steve Flack SiR – 5 years on and a Little bit wiser – Fred
Johnston Storing historical data – Dave Doulton
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1987 – Pomme D’Or - Jersey
Highlights the FOOD !!! Gestapo headquarters the FOOD !!! !!! Travel arrangements the FOOD !!! !!! !!! Island tour the FOOD !!! !!! !!! !!!!
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1988 – Viking Hotel - YorkProceedings getting thinner
Papers from one-day Edinburgh meeting Less ‘waffle’ / listings in papers Harder to get presenters to produce paper
versions– Time– Effort– More ( and better overheads )
Talk on York and it’s history – now becoming a ‘feature’
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1988 – Viking Hotel - York
Papers included Retrieval Procedures Generation via Forms
Menus – Carmen Lopez SiR data base in haste, with no previous
experience – Phillip Mullock Customised Data Dictionary Reports using
SiR/SQL+ - Bernie Enlander Confessions of a none-to-experience SiR user –
Dave Stone
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1988 – Viking Hotel - YorkSIGs
Statistics or SiR/PC SQL+ / ICL
SiR/EASYHighlights
My opening remarks – Still causing ‘discussions’ on last day
The view from the windows The Caribbean dinner
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1989 – Great Danes – Maidstone
Yet more new owners of SiR Mo and Tony Reardon
Papers showed moves From Batch to Interactive mode Word processing instead of typewriters Towards user papers Fewer technical Just copies of overhead slides
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1989 – Great Danes – Maidstone
SiGs were now for all Technical PQL Data Base design
Question and Answer sessionDetailed explanation of 2.3 features
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1989 – Great Danes – Maidstone
Highlights Access to the hotel
– No taxis– Walk over the M2 (?) motorway construction site
Talk on ‘Kent Past and Present’ Tour of Leeds Castle Conference dinner in a mediaeval banqueting
hall
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1990 - StaffordVery thin proceedings – combined with 1991Papers included
SiR towards the year 2000 – Wally Gazdzik House Doctor Allocation to Posts – Dave
Doulton Looking at an Alternative to SiR – Katherine
EllisPanel session – Hints & TipsOptional training session on first day
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1990 - Stafford
Highlights
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1991 - Portsmouth
First afternoon – optional training session on 3.0
Talk on Portsmouth – back againThemed sessions
SiR on PCs SiR under UNIX SiR and Tabfiles Version 3 and the future
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1991 - Portsmouth
Highlights
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1992 – Viking Hotel - York
Afternoon training PQL subroutines SiR debugger
Railways and York talkNo SIGsPanel discussionNews of 3.2
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1992 – Viking Hotel - York
Hints and Tips sessions Concurrency Monitoring retrievals Design
Papers ‘Yes SiR, No SiR’ - should CES keep SiR ‘The Case for Caselessness, when less means
more’ – the move away from hierarchical ?
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1992 – Viking Hotel - York
More papers in proceedingsMost were word processedMany included good overheadsNo conference summary in proceedings Published in Reporter instead
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1993 – London
Data Base designs training session – Tony Reardon & Heather Goldsmith
Experimented with a number of 15 minute papers to encourage some ‘new blood’
Lots of Tips & Tricks and training type papers
Question & Answer session Panel discussion
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1993 – London
Memories No indication as to where in London Could have been North west ? Late starts to accommodate ‘day delegates’ Proceedings were nearly all word processed but
still some PQL and schema listings appeared
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1994 – Periquito Hotel – London
International conference Speakers from 3 continents Delegates from 6 countries
Papers covered Applications design Esoterics of SiR/Host A screen painter in PQL Statistics in SiR Is SiR the best ?
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1994 – Periquito Hotel – London
Highlights Rabbit warren of a hotel The partial loss of interaction due to day
delegates Last set of published proceeding
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1995 – 1998 1995 Edinburgh June (one day)
Kenilworth November 1996 Bremen March
London June (one day)Edinburgh November (one day)
1997 Sydney JanuaryLondon June (one day)Edinburgh November (one day)
1998 Florida AprilLondon June (one day)
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
1999 – Grassmarket - Edinburgh
First time electronic presentations outweighed paper
Highlights First real sight of SiR 2000 The ‘ghost tour’ of Edinburgh The view from the hotel windows
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
2000 – Old Mill - Colchester
Speakers had to provide electronic version of paper before conference Not for publication but to be loaded on PC
Highlights Really a one day conference Preceded by two days of training Is this the way of the future to encourage
attendance
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond
What changes have we seenNo published proceedingsLess JCL / PQLPowerPoint presentationsMore emphasis on webFewer attendeesMuch more trainingNow look at the changes in SiR
NOT a ‘Blue Peter’ approach – ‘live’ demos
From ICE to vPQL and …. beyond