Getting Startedwith pureQuery

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Getting Started with pureQuery
1.1.1 What’s in a name?
pureQuery is the name IBM has chosen to represent a data access platform that can help
optimize and secure data access. It was first released publicly in October 2007 as part of
what was then known as the “Data Studio” family (now known as the “Optim” product
family). (More on the history of pureQuery can be found on Wikipedia [1]).
Because you may be familiar with the term pureXML® from what you’ve read in Getting
Started with DB2 Express-C, it’s interesting to get a little background on how this data
access platform ended up with the name pureQuery. Stephen Brodsky, an IBM
Distinguished Engineer in the IBM Optim organization, in one of his blog entries, says it
best:
So how did this platform get the name pureQuery? It didn’t start out that way (as is
often the case with new products or technologies). We had two internal code
names for the project, Data Zero (because it’s the data access layer for Project
Zero) and JLinQ, because it compares very favorably with Microsoft®'s LINQ
initiative (all the power of database access without having to change the C# and
Visual Basic languages – we achieved all the major features of LINQ but stayed
pure standard Java). pureQuery embraces the full database access without
watering down the SQL or database capabilities. It avoids least common
denominator approaches that dilute the ability to access what you really need in a
database and integrates all aspects of the life cycle in both runtime and tooling,
"Pure" means no compromises and first class Java-SQL-database integration.
As the project moved closer to release, it was time to choose a name. Because the
project represented application plus database integration at what we feel is the
best, truest form, without all the mess that sometimes bogs software down, early
users called it "pure data access" or "pure data query (PDQ)." The pure concept,
and the PDQ acronym, really resonated with the marketing team (the same team
that named pureXML), and the pureQuery name was born. [2]
It’s important to note here that since Steve wrote that blog entry, a subset of pureQuery
benefits have been extended beyond Java data access, including to .NET, and by the time
this book is published, CLI. The focus of this Getting Started book is on the support for
Java environments.