Summary

This chapter overviewed many DB2 features that an application programmer should be aware of. When designing an application to access a database, the more a programmer understands the environment, the better off he will be in designing an application that executes efficiently and with the best possible performance. To this end, DB2 offers many advanced features such as Stored Procedures, Summary Tables, and Common Tables. The programmer must also be aware of how they effect the database, so understanding Compound SQL and how transactions and locking work are crucial to avoid unnecessary resource conflicts or even deadlocks within the database system.

This chapter also covered some programming tools and techniques that are available to the developer, such as SPB and SQL Stored Procedures. Unfortunately, it is out of the scope of this book to cover these in more detail, but take some time to explore their usefulness. The SPB primarily uses Java and to write stored procedures; Java is covered in detail in Chapter 12.