Re: Informix 4GL - Help is required

David Kosenko wrote: > > Also sprach "Billy Wheeler" <billy@west.co.za> : > :SuperNova's I4GL takes a similar approach to 4Js in that they strip > :off the presentation layer, but they actually translate the > :presentation layer into SuperNova, which you can then *really* > :GUI-ize the presentation layer. You can then either leave your > :business logic in 4GL or you can gradually rewrite into SuperNova. > :I've been buggering around with SuperNova over the last couple of > :days and can honestly say that so far, it's a worthy successor to > :4GL, even if it isn't from Informix. > > When I looked at SuperNova, it was built on top of 4Js (i.e. you needed 4Js > compiler AND the SuperNova product to make it work). Seemed like a rather > complicated architecture to me. Then again, I only saw a brief demo. Are they > still using 4Js, or have they replaced that with their own compiler? I got a more complete demo and asked some hard questions. Here is the poop as I saw it. YMMV. They are still using 4Js p-code version. Actually, you can continue to maintain the 4Js extended 4GL code OR you can wrap SuperNova elements around the 4GL forms. If you want to take advantage of SuperNova's Object Oriented and GUI specific features you need to freeze the 4GL code and add features using SuperNova itself. All that SuperNova did was to work with the 4Js people to abstract their display layer a bit more than they already had and plug in a SuperNova display module that pumps output to SuperNova to display and SuperNova pipes user input back to the 4Js runner when the keyboard/mouse focus is in a 4GL window. Not to minimize the effort involved or the magnitude of the result, this is a neat system, but do not be fooled into thinking: "Hey, I can use this to continue to code in 4GL and get a GUI application out." Rather it is closer to: "Hey, I can use this to plug my existing non-GUI forms into new GUI code without having to recode anything that does not need GUI features. The integration is very good. You can add a SuperNova GUI pop-up pick-list to an existing 4GL form and trigger it on an input field. Nice. You can take multiple forms and place them in separate, free focus, windows that the user can navigate with just a mouse. Cool. But the result is no longer purely 4GL. Ungh? Anyway things to ponder. Art S. Kagel