The technical and logical challenges of data preparation and data
transformation can differ greatly from project to project. Also, data
transformation is quite a separate challenge from database management.

A pragmatic approach requires more than one data manipulation
programming language.

If the logical complexity of the required data transformations is not
too high, a GUI-oriented application may be best. However, for complex
data transformations, a graphical user interface can be inflexible and
can get in the way.

SQL works quite well with some data transformations, and can be
cumbersome for others. The SAS datastep is a better choice for many
types of transformations, but for a many-to-many join, for example,
SQL is a better fit. A software development language choice ( Perl,
C ) usually requires more development time and maintenance than a
specialized tool.

On Nov 20, 1:41 pm, Robert <irishhac... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
Should this post have been attached to
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....9c1c5c7b0bb947
?

-- Mark D Powell --