Re: NewEra vs VB/Delphi

On 18 Jun 97 at 15:43, David Lapsley wrote: > We have used Visual Basic and Delphi to develop Client Server > applications. Condolences! > We are considering the use of NewEra for our next project and are > trying to evaluate the product before purchasing it. I wish you well... :-) > Does anyone have any experiences or comparisons of these tools !! Yes. The first and foremost thing I want to say is don't listen to the idiots on this newsgroup. Hm. I suppose that includes me! :-) Most of the people here will slag off NewEra because they have not learned to use it properly. They have tried to use it like VB and it's not particularly good in that role. Each of the products mentioned in your post has a particular niche (or canyon!) to fill, NewEra is best suited to the following environments: * team development, i.e. more than one person involved in the coding, with a limited (but useful) version control system and (optional) complete integration with PVCS. * object development, i.e. not just event-driven, but fully object-oriented. We have recently made the jump from event-driven to OO, and seen a dramatic productivity gain. * "enterprise" deployment, i.e. 100 users or more. * sites with a large 4GL code base looking to migrate to this awful bloody windoze GUI client/server environment that adds no value to any business application. If you are successfully using Delphi as an OO tool, you should have little trouble making good use out of NewEra. Be aware that NewEra has less out-of-the-box functionality than Delphi, but can generally be made to perform most windoze things with a little effort. It comes with an Application Framework Class Library which is usable but not great. We've just spent a lot of time on our current project rewriting large sections of it to improve functionality and consistency. Check out the HANDLE and HANDLER statements to see where some of the real power of the language comes from. Finally, be aware that version 3.0 did entail some fairly extensive reworking, so it's still got the odd interesting undocumented feature, but they are also looking at some intriguing options for 3.10, in terms of support for Java and other environments. In conclusion, take a look at NewEra if one or more of the above environments match your requirements, but be prepared for a fairly hefty learning curve. Good luck. -- Ciao, Billy Nose to the ground and ear to the grindstone in: Kuwait