Another, not so small, poll

Dear Reader of Comp.Databases.Informix, A. Thank you to all of you who responded to my previous poll on the CONSTRUCT statement. We have noted your responses and have built a proposal which preserves current semantics by default but enables the more ANSI-compliant mode by use of OPTIONS. I will post that proposal when I get the OK to do so. B. Given the success of the last I have a couple more similar questions about future directions, and would similarly appreciate your thoughts on them. There's a deadline on the first one, and the deadline is noon California time (PST, 2000 UTC/GMT) on Thursday 9 December. Responses after that time may not have an opportunity to influence the decision, though they would still be of interest. QUESTION 1: Which would be of more value to you in 94Q3: (1) Version 4.13 Unix Tools (Compiled I4GL, I4GL-RDS, I4GL-ID, ISQL) with the same level of support for the 5.0x and 6.0x Engine as the present 4.11 Unix Tools but with more bugs fixed. (2) Version 5.03 Unix Tools with full support for 5.03 Engine syntax, and with fewer bugs fixed. OBSERVATIONS (for questions 1 & 2): (1) 4.12 Unix Tools will be available from Feb 94 (94Q1) as they and the 4.12 Unix Engines are ported to different machines. (2) There will not be a 4.13 version of the engines. (3) The 5.03 version of the tools would be released concurrently with the 5.03 version of the engines. The 4.13 version would have no engines release to be tied to but might well be tied to the 5.03 version of the engines. (4) The extra features proposed for 5.03 would be primary support for: creating stored procedures (using CREATE PROCEDURE FROM), dropping stored procedures, executing both non-cursory and cursory stored procedures, creating and dropping triggers, creating and altering tables with primary keys, foreign keys and check constraints. There are a number of other minor 5.03 syntax changes which would also be supported. You would also be able to use 5.03 Relay Modules for accessing remote databases. The generated ESQL/C code would be genuine ESQL/C and we would expect to use an ESQL/C compiler to compile it, which would allow you to compile with a 6.0x ESQL/C compiler, or a 5.0x ESQL/C compiler, or (in principal) a 4.1x ESQL/C compiler as desired. The licencing issue has to be resolved, but it is likely that the compatible ESQL/C compiler would become part of the I4GL package. (5) Informix-4GL++ should be released within about 6 months of the prospective release date of the proposed 4.13/5.03 maintenance release (and 4GL++ might be released either before or after the maintenance release). This will be available on Windows first, and subsequently on Unix. It will provide a large number of significant enhancements to the Informix-4GL functionality, including dynamic memory management and a rich, true object- oriented programming language and development environment. Features such as inheritance and polymorphism will provide the benefits which are commonly available in such languages, such as better code reuse and easier extension of existing classes for more specialised use. QUESTION 2: In the light of point 5 above, and given your current expectations for deploying Informix-4GL++ over the next 2 years (to end 95Q4), which would be more important to you for the first Unix release -- a character-based implementation (for green-screen terminals without mice) or a Motif-based implementation (for X-workstations and X-terminals) supporting true event driven programming. Please respond by e-mail, with reasons too if you feel able to spend the time to give them to me. Thank you for reading this far. Yours sincerely, Jonathan Leffler (johnl@informix.com) #include <disclaimer.h>