You may sometimes find that your PowerBuilder applications that utilize the SQL Anywhere DBMS run slow during some retrieval or update operations. While this may be attributed to network load, server resource contention, a too small temporary work database, etc the most common overlooked area is often the actual Data Manipulation Language (DML) statement itself that we commonly call SQL. Even though the “S” stands for Structured, I always joke with my fellow developers and say the “S” stands for Stupid as it really depends on how properly the DBMS interprets and handles the statement as to whether you get the desired result set within the desired response time. Many application developers miss out on a key ingredient during their SQL statement development and that is having a conversation with the DBMS’s Optimizer during the system development. These informal “chats” can prevent many unwanted behaviours in production and have a profound effect on your DML coding.

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