4gl: Better than sliced bread?

In article <1993May11.211120.27014@rpslmc.edu> eklhad@siss81.sis.rpslmc.edu (Karl Dahlke) writes: >Our first version of the general_view_screen system was >extremely awkward, due primarily to the lack of function pointers in 4gl. I'm having fun in c.d.i today. Is this an example of one of the powerful features of 4gl that give you that ten-fold productivity increase? Hmmm, given the lack of function pointers, the creation of any kind of abstract data type would be nigh on impossible. Well, who needs software engineering anyway? Real Men (tm) don't write generic functions. Useful function libraries? Bah -- who needs 'em? Seriously, I've never used 4gl, but from what I've heard it's useful for knocking out applications that don't get too involved. As long as you don't need to do anything that requires the power of C, it's OK, and they let you link in C functions when you need to. If you want to write anything like a general library that you can re-use, or a program that uses pipes or anything slightly complicated, you're better off in C. In summary: 4gl is less powerful than C, but more convenient for a certain class of applications. I'm curious: From the people out there who have used 4gl and C extensively, what would you say the "productivity gain" is? My guess is that 4gl is good because it's easier to learn than C, and not-too-complex stuff can be done quickly and efficiently. As long as there's one good C programmer on staff, I'd believe that 4gl could be an effective tool, but I'd hate to be limited to it. Even so, I think that the "ten-fold" increase in productivity is either: 1) Inflated by a factor of 5 or more. 2) Only applicable to people who don't know how to program in C. So, 4gl/C programmers, am I right? Or should I go out and buy 4gl *quick*, before it makes C++ obsolete? :-) While I'm at it, does 4gl have a symbolic debugger that's anywhere near as good as gdb? (NOTE: This is *not* a flame of Karl Dahlke's posting... It's more an expression of amusement at the Informix sales literature. What they're saying is almost identical to the sales talk given for Jovial, a language that my father helped develop at SDC. In the Jovial article in the SDC newsletter, they talk about how "interactive, convenient access to a database will allow non-programmers to view data and easily generate reports". This was written in 1967. Sound familiar?) -- Bill Foote bill@pds.com PDS Corp, Los Angeles, CA USA uunet!promdist!bill