Re: Diference between 4GL and 4GL-RDS

tkon@leon.nrcps.ariadne-t.gr (Thanassis S. Kontonatsios) writes: >Hi netters ! >Does anyone have the time to explain to me what is the difference >between 4GL and 4GL-RDS ? 4GL/c compiled creates executable machine code. Actually what it does is precompile the 4GL code (file.4gl) to ESQL/c (file.ec), then to c code (file.c), then hands off to your c compiler for opbject (file.o) and on to executable (a.out). RDS (Rapid Development System) compiles to interpretable psuedo-code (file.4go), which can then be executed via a runner (fglgo file.4go) provided with the product. >Is it a good idea to use 4GL-RDS in a UNIX environment ? In a development environment, yes. In production, maybe not. For development, compiles take seconds as opposed to minutes, and you can use our Debugger (Informix ID; a seperate, but realatively inexpensive, product) to decrease development time significantly. For production, load time at the beginning of the application is significantly increased, because it has to read the psuedo-code (we had one test that the difference in start-up time was 30+ seconds for RDS, vs 1.5 seconds for the same code in c compiled). Also, there is much less shared memory usage in RDS, so each user needs more memory to run the program. A common solution is to run RDS & ID for development, then compile with C compiled for production. With very minor exceptions, the writing of the 4GL codes doesn't change. ================ Dennis J. Pimple Informix CSE / Denver